The Catholic map of Penang straddles a strait. On the island, inside the heritage core of George Town, the Church of the Assumption sits on Farquhar Street — the third-oldest Catholic church in Malaysia, and for half a century the seat of its bishop. Three kilometres of water separate that quarter from the mainland shore, and beyond the shore the ground lifts into the farms and orchards below Bukit Mertajam hill. Each July that hill fills with pilgrims, seventeen kilometres east of the cathedral city in a straight line.
The devotion there began with work. Chinese and Indian migrants reached the district from Batu Kawan in 1833; by 1840 some 190 Chinese Catholics were farming the foothills, and French priests of the Paris Foreign Missions Society came over from Batu Kawan to minister to them. The parish was founded in 1846 and put under St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus, patron of mothers, of families and of grandparents. Each July more than 100,000 pilgrims come to her — from across Malaysia, and from Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia — over ten days that Bernama, Malaysia's national news agency, counts among the country's largest religious celebrations. Pope Francis granted the church the title of minor basilica in 2019, the first and only one in the country.
What the pilgrimage gathers around is small and physical. Beside the 2002 church with its Minangkabau roofs sits the church of 1888, called the Shrine of Harmony, with Fr. F. P. Sorin buried in its main aisle; he died on the feast of St. Anne. Taps on the hill run water from a spring, and pilgrims fill bottles to carry home. Relics of St. Anne are kept in the basilica. Across the strait, in a reliquarium at Sungai Ara, lie relics of St. Faustina Kowalska and Pope St. John Paul II.
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
The first Catholics of the district arrived as labour. Chinese and Indian migrant workers came in from Batu Kawan in 1833, and by 1840 a community of about 190 Chinese Catholics had settled at the foothills of Bukit Mertajam, working farms and orchards. French missionaries of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris rode over from the older parish at Batu Kawan to serve them. Fr. Adolphe Couellan MEP, the first of those visiting priests, built a chapel on top of the hill, about two kilometres from the town; its foundation and cornerstone can be seen at the original site. The earliest surviving baptism records date from 1846, and that is the year the parish takes as its founding. A larger chapel followed in 1865 under Fr. Maistre MEP, whose foundation stones lie behind the water font.
Fr. F. P. Sorin MEP arrived in 1883 and served fifteen years. In 1888 he built the church that the parish calls the Old Church and honours as the Shrine of Harmony — the oldest building left on the site. Sorin died on 26 July 1907, the feast of St. Anne, and was buried in the main aisle of his own church. Recovered stained glass and one of the three original bells are inside.
In 1948 the British administration declared a State of Emergency across Malaya in response to a Communist insurgency, and the shrine grounds were designated a "black area" and put out of bounds. Worship moved off the hill to the chapel of the Holy Infant Jesus Convent. Fr. Thomas Chin then arranged a new church in the town itself, seating about 700, on land bought by Fr. Teng; the parish used it from 1957 until July 2002, and the site now holds Kim Sen Primary School. The Emergency reached far past the parish: under the resettlement policy applied across Malaya, the colonial administration moved large numbers of rural Chinese residents into guarded new villages, and a local history of the district records that the hill itself was treated as insurgent ground. Restoration of the hillside shrine began in 1977. Worship returned to the hill in 2002.
The present church was built between 1998 and 2002 by Fr. Michael Cheah, on the sanctuary grounds below the old one. It seats about 2,200 under Minangkabau-style roofs, a form borrowed from Malaysian vernacular building, and the Apostolic Delegate to Malaysia opened it on 26 July 2002. Statues of the Stations of the Cross were set along the hill paths in 2006. In the same year Fr. Stephen Liew put up a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes at the base of St. Anne's Hill, opened on 1 October.
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued the decree granting the title of minor basilica on 5 September 2019, by the authority of Pope Francis. The pandemic delayed the ceremony: the solemn proclamation was made on 9 January 2023, at a Mass presided over by Cardinal William Goh of Singapore. The church belongs to the Diocese of Penang, whose bishop, Cardinal Sebastian Francis, is also its rector.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Penang
Minor Basilica of St. Anne
Basilika Minor St. Anne
The sanctuary crowns a hill on the edge of Bukit Mertajam, on the Penang mainland. Two churches share the ground: the 2002 building where the parish worships, wide enough for about 2,200 and roofed in the tiered Minangkabau form, and above it the 1888 Shrine of Harmony, small, colonial and plain, with Fr. Sorin under its main aisle. Between and around them a pilgrim walks the rest of the site — the Stations of the Cross along the hill paths, the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes at the foot of the hill, the taps of St. Anne's Water Font where a spring on the hill is drawn off and carried home in bottles, the foundation stones of the 1865 chapel behind them, the cornerstone of Fr. Couellan's first chapel at the top, and Dataran St. Anne, the plaza laid in front of the new church and dedicated to the Paris Foreign Missions Society. Relics of St. Anne are kept in the basilica. The parish also keeps two chapels in the villages nearby, at Alma and at Berapit. The basilica has its own guide on this site, at Bukit Mertajam, which treats the sanctuary at greater length.
Church of the Assumption
Gereja Assumption
The church sits on Farquhar Street, in the UNESCO World Heritage zone of George Town, a modest colonial building among the shophouses and the older civic quarter. It was founded after George Town itself, which dates from 1786, and it is the third-oldest Catholic church in Malaysia. From 1955 to 2003 it was the pro-cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of Penang. Since 1988 it has belonged to the City Parish of George Town, a union of four historic churches, and the diocese lists it as a pilgrim church for the Jubilee Year of Hope 2025.
Church of Divine Mercy
Gereja Divine Mercy
At Sungai Ara, in the Bayan Lepas district at the southern end of Penang Island, a modern church completed in 2010 seats about 900; it was raised to a parish in 2013. In 2015 it built a baptismal pool and a reliquarium, and placed in it the relics of St. Faustina Kowalska and of Pope St. John Paul II — the first church in Malaysia to obtain the relic of John Paul II. It was one of three churches of the Penang diocese named as pilgrimage sites for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, with a Holy Door of Mercy opened for the occasion. The church lies about 24 km from the basilica and 14 km from the Church of the Assumption.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Feast of St. Anne — 26 July, within a ten-day celebration
The liturgical memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne falls on 26 July, and the basilica builds a ten-day celebration around it, ending on the last Sunday of the month. It opens with a nine-day novena, with daily Mass and prayer in English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin and Tamil. More than 100,000 pilgrims come across the ten days; Free Malaysia Today has reported pre-pandemic peaks above 250,000. On the Saturday evening of the final weekend an open-air Mass is celebrated in the four languages, and a candlelight procession follows it — about 1.6 km from Gate 3 of the basilica along Jalan Kulim, Jalan Kampung Baru and Jalan Berjaya, back to Gate 1 near eleven at night, behind a decorated float bearing the statues of St. Anne and of her daughter. The grand feast Mass on the closing Sunday draws the largest single-day crowd. Pilgrims leave flowers, candles and handwritten petitions, walk the Stations on the hill, go to confession, fill bottles at the water font and venerate the relics of St. Anne; a cultural fair and food stalls run alongside the liturgy, and pilgrims of other faiths attend with the Catholics. Roads around Bukit Mertajam are closed for the final weekend, so arriving early and parking at a distance is prudent.
Divine Mercy Sunday — the Sunday after Easter
Kept at the Church of Divine Mercy in Sungai Ara, not at the basilica. A nine-day novena opens on Good Friday and closes with Mass and a procession of the statue of the Divine Mercy, with veneration of the relics of St. Faustina Kowalska and Pope St. John Paul II.
Memorial of St. Faustina Kowalska — 5 October
A separate novena at Sungai Ara ends on her memorial with Mass and a procession of her statue.
🛏️ Where to Stay
Domus St Anne and St. Anne's Dormitory (pilgrim accommodation) — The basilica's own lodging, inside the sanctuary compound on Jalan Kulim, run by the parish management committee on a non-profit basis and open to individuals, parish groups and organisations coming for pilgrimage or retreat. The parish office handles reservations directly. Website
Iconic Hotel Penang ⭐⭐⭐⭐ — A 195-room hotel in the Icon City development at Bukit Tengah, 5 km from the basilica on the mainland, with two restaurants, an outdoor pool and a fitness centre. The closest full-service hotel to the sanctuary that can be booked online. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
Wesley Hotel ⭐⭐⭐ — A mid-market hotel at Juru Sentral, 4.7 km from the basilica and a few hundred metres from the Iconic, with church-themed décor, a rooftop garden and an on-site café. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
Yeng Keng Hotel (boutique hotel) — Nineteen rooms in a restored 1800s Anglo-Indian bungalow on Chulia Street, in the George Town heritage core and a short walk from the Church of the Assumption. A base for pilgrims who want the island churches, with the basilica a day trip across the bridge. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
🚗 Getting There
Penang is an island and a strip of mainland coast, and the two Catholic destinations sit on opposite sides of it: George Town on the island's north-east tip, the basilica on a hill above Bukit Mertajam on the mainland.
By Air: Penang International Airport (PEN) is at Bayan Lepas, about 20 km south of George Town and roughly half an hour away by road. It is the nearest airport to both destinations, and it is in the same district as the Church of Divine Mercy. Rapid Penang route 401E runs from the airport to Weld Quay in George Town.
By Train: KTM's Electric Train Service links KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur with Butterworth, on the mainland opposite George Town. Bukit Mertajam has its own station on the same line, reached from Jalan Permatang Rawa or Jalan Padang Lalang, and it is the interchange for the northern Komuter services.
By Ferry: Passenger ferries cross the roughly 3 km channel between the Pangkalan Sultan Abdul Halim terminal at Butterworth and the Pangkalan Raja Tun Uda terminal at Weld Quay in George Town. At Butterworth the ferry terminal, the railway station and the bus station make up the Penang Sentral hub, joined by a covered walkway.
By Bus: Penang Sentral at Butterworth is the mainland's long-distance coach terminal, with services to towns across Peninsular Malaysia, and it is the point at which most bus journeys to Bukit Mertajam or across to the island begin.
By Car: The Penang Bridge carries road traffic between the island and the mainland; the basilica lies about 17 km from the Church of the Assumption in a straight line, and the road route across the bridge runs somewhat longer. From Kuala Lumpur, the North–South Expressway runs north roughly 360 km.
During the feast: Roads around Bukit Mertajam are closed for the final weekend of the July celebration to clear the procession route. Pilgrims should plan on congestion and on parking well away from the sanctuary.
📚 Further Reading
Books:
Jean-Marie Lebel and Brigitte Ostiguy. Saint Anne de Beaupré: An Inspiration — An illustrated popular history of the Quebec shrine, the best-known St. Anne pilgrimage in the world, and useful context for the devotion kept at Bukit Mertajam.
Good St. Anne (TAN Books) — The classic English devotional to St. Anne: a short account of the saint and the shrines in her honour, followed by prayers and novenas. A slim booklet, and the practical companion for anyone preparing to make the nine-day novena.
Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, eds. Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society — An academic collection on how the cult of St. Anne grew in late medieval Europe, its imagery and its family theology. Written for scholars and students; the focus is European, not Asian.
Online Resources:
Over 100,000 pilgrims to throng St Anne Feast in Bukit Mertajam — A report by Bernama, Malaysia's national news agency, on the ten-day feast, the nine-day novena and the crowds they draw.
Church's History — The basilica's own history of the five successive churches on the site, from Fr. Couellan's chapel to the 2002 building.
🎥 Recommended Videos
Day 9 | 25th July 2026, 7.00pm | Open Air Mass | Feast of Saint Anne | Multilingual — The basilica's own recording of the feast's open-air Mass, celebrated in four languages. A full liturgy of about three hours.
Over 30,000 attend St Anne's Feast celebrations in Penang — A short news report by The Star, Malaysia's national English-language daily, on the crowds of a single feast day.
PENANG HOW NOW: MINOR BASILICA OF ST ANNE — A three-minute walk through the sanctuary grounds from the Penang channel HARMONICO.
🔗 Useful Links
Minor Basilica of St. Anne — The sanctuary's official website.
Diocese of Penang — The diocese to which all three churches in this guide belong.
Church of Divine Mercy — The Sungai Ara parish that keeps the relics of St. Faustina and Pope St. John Paul II.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Bukit Mertajam (17 km east) — The dedicated guide to the Minor Basilica of St. Anne, the sanctuary that draws Penang's pilgrims, with the shrine treated at greater length than it is here.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"The future of the world depends on this covenant between young and old."
— Pope Francis, Message for the First World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, 2021
