Holy Week rites: the Via Crucis at the Madonna della Grotta Sanctuary

The sanctuary of Santa Maria della Grotta rises in the municipality of Modugno (BA), three kilometres from the town centre, on the provincial road to Carbonara di Bari, on the edge of the lama Lamasinata.

The flower-lined avenue leading to the sanctuary is characteristic. From the sanctuary's terraces you look out over a fine stretch of countryside where you can see cypresses, willows and eucalyptus; behind the sanctuary there is a pine wood. The religious settlement has ancient origins: in the 8th century it was a rock church, called Santa Maria in Gryptam, where the Basilian monks fleeing the iconoclastic persecutions found refuge. In 1854 the whole complex was taken over by the Modugno canon Luigi Loiacono, who transformed the little church and built the villa above it with a tower and battlemented crowning. The appearance of this building recalls a late-Renaissance palazzo typical of the centre of Modugno.

In the 20th century the settlement was abandoned to decay until 1974, when the Rogationist Fathers began a series of restorations that returned the sanctuary to the ancient cult of Mary. The restorations brought to light the ancient grotto dedicated to the Madonna and the cave where the Cistercian Saint Conrad of Bavaria lived and died, after his return from the Holy Land. Parts of a mosaic that covered the floor were also brought to light, along with two tombs, one of which perhaps holds the remains of the Saint. Three frescoes painted on the rock in Byzantine style and dating from the 12th-14th century were also discovered: one depicts the face of Christ, the second the Lamentation over the Dead Christ and the third another face, perhaps of Christ.

Interesting is the discovery of a statuette in limestone, made by an anonymous artist in the 16th century, depicting a Pietà similar to Michelangelo's. For about thirty years now, every year on the occasion of Good Friday, a suggestive costumed Via Crucis is held there, the final stage of a procession that winds for seven kilometres through some of the Bari districts bordering the Sanctuary. Despite the biting cold, participation was intense. So for anyone in the area it is advisable to visit this little church and, in the pre-Easter period, to take part in this evocative event.