From Lord Shiva to St Rosalia

Every year, in the height of Sicily’s summer heat, Palermo fills with festival lights and honking scooters as people gather to celebrate Rosalia, the city’s patron saint.

AFTER they spread pink petals on golden statues of Ganesh and Shiva, and recited prayers to blue-skinned and eight-armed gods, the Hindu faithful left their temple and headed to a another one of their divinities – the Catholic St Rosalia.

“To the other goddess!” said Swasthika Sasiyendran, 23, after she changed from her sari into a T-shirt bearing Rosalia’s face.

Every year, in the height of Sicily’s summer heat, Palermo fills with festival lights and honking scooters as people gather to celebrate Rosalia, the city’s patron saint.

Among the hundreds of thousands who join the procession, which culminates with a towering statue of the saint being carried through the streets, are members of the city’s Sri Lankan Tamil community, some of Rosalia’s most ardent worshippers.

Palermo is prone to this kind of medley. It is a city that sits between continents, shaped by the overlapping of Greek, Byzantine, Arab, Norman and Spanish civilisations, which hundreds of years ago made it a cosmopolitan, open and refined metropolis.

The blurring of lines between faiths, origins and traditions stands in stark contrast to a growing political discourse in Italy and Europe that insists on firm borders between nations and religions, and immutable identities.

In recent decades, Palermo has welcomed a new generation of immigrants, including thousands of Tamils, both Catholic and Hindu, who fled civil war and came to look for work, forming one of the biggest communities in Italy.

While segregation and discrimination remain in many quarters of the city, locals say Palermo has kept some of its tolerance and openness.

The shabby and affordable city centre has allowed foreigners to settle in, rather than being segregated in only the suburbs. The downtown Ballaro market has quickly absorbed stands selling plantains and cassava alongside those offering traditional fried chickpea patties and boiled octopus.

Many groups promoting dialogue between cultures have sprung up.

While some praise Leoluca Orlando, who was the city’s progressive mayor for more than 20 years, for sending out a message of inclusion, many Tamils credit someone else.

“Santa Rosalia,” Swasthika said. “She welcomes everybody.”

Palermo’s Hindu Tamils, most of whom are originally from Sri Lanka, have added the Catholic saint to their colourful pantheon of gods.

Many are attracted to her reputation for miracles, especially for saving the city from a plague in the 17th century. They are also drawn to her mystical sanctuary, a cave on a mount north of the city where she is said to have died after escaping an arranged marriage.

Most of the pilgrims who visited the cave recently were Tamils. In the shrines that many Tamils have in their homes, the image of Rosalia in a monk’s habit features alongside images of Hindu gods including Lakshmi, wrapped in golden necklaces, her legs crossed on top of a lotus flower.

“Santa Rosalia is like our mother,” said Tharsan Mahadevar, the secretary of the Hindu temple, as he sat eating lentils and a spicy vegetable curry, the image of Ganesha tattooed on his arms and chest.

Like many other Tamils, Swasthika’s father, Sasi, came to Palermo in the 1990s from Sri Lanka, which was then ravaged by civil war.

He did not have a Hindu temple in Palermo, or a place of worship to attend, except for the peaceful Santa Rosalia sanctuary atop Mount Pellegrino. Surrounded by umbrella pines, the site reminded him of the temples back home, hidden in the green mountains of northern Sri Lanka.

He and other lonely, scared men, including many Catholic Tamils, began calling Rosalia “Madonna,” a mother who welcomed them to Palermo.

Three days after Swasthika’s mother travelled from South Asia to Palermo to marry her father, he took her to the sanctuary, which he had begun calling Mazhai Kovil Madha, or “Mountain Church Mary”.

Over the years, their Hindu temple was built, wedged between short buildings and bleached awnings near Palermo’s shipyards, but Swasthika’s father continued turning to Rosalia for help and comfort.

The Sasiyendran family credits the saint with an array of favours, including catching flights, finding forgotten bags and protecting their father when he was still sleeping on benches in Palermo’s parks.

Many of the Tamils who climbed up the mountain on a recent morning – who were afforded a stunning view of Palermo in the rosy dawn light – also came with gratitude.

Kuganathan Kanagasingam, 54, said that when his wife had depression in 2022, he began walking up the mountain every Sunday at 5am – even in the pouring rain or scorching heat.

“Now she is well,” he said. “The medicines do a part, God does the other,” he said, before kissing the steps leading to Rosalia’s cave.

Alongside the cave hung baby shoes, ultrasound photographs and silver figurines of organs the saint had healed, among other votive paraphernalia.

Kiru Ponnampalam, 48, a Tamil cleaner, lit a red candle and placed it in front of Rosalia’s statue. He said he had been married for 10 years with no children until he began going to the sanctuary, when he finally managed to have a child, Abi, who is now six.

“It was a miracle by Santa Rosalia,” he said.

Academics who have studied the community say that the Tamils’ devotion to Rosalia has provided a way to legitimise themselves and to be accepted by Sicilians.

“It was a way for them to become visible,” said Eugenio Giorgianni, an anthropologist at the University of Messina. “To enter the public space.”

A family of Tamil pilgrims, after wetting their hands with holy water from a spring in the sanctuary, went to change from their cotton dresses into elaborate red-and-gold saris before heading to the Hindu temple. Others soon joined them, some still wearing plastic Christian crosses.

They headed to Rosalia’s annual event, where they mixed with Sicilians, tourists, street vendors and loudspeakers blasting Italian summer hits. They watched the fireworks and admired Rosalia’s statue: like the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, she was wrapped in flower petals, a lily this time.

“I really don’t see that big of a difference,” said Dhanja Kirupakaran, 20 – who, according to her mother, was born because of a miracle by the saint. — ©2024 The New York Times Company