Visual reference point for the city, the shrine of Our Lady of Tears was completed under the project of French architects Andrault and Parat in 1994.



The ceremony of consecration of one of the most important times Marian South was presided over by Pope John Paul II. The cult of the Madonna was born in Syracuse in 1953, when a house because of Orti in the area of Borgata Saint Lucia, in a modest dwelling un'effige gypsum della Madonnina tears began to rise. Today the shrine of Our Lady of Tears is one of the most important for the worship of Mary in the world. The temple, designed in the Sixties, has a circular of 90 meters and its spire, which was placed a statue of Our Lady, dominates the city for nearly 100 metres high. Among the 19 chapels of the crypt also the first of Byzantine rite in a Latin rite church in Italy. E 'characterized by un'iconòstasi with the figures of traditional greek Byzantine rite, with Christ and Madonna. Special dell'iconòstasi the sanctuary the presence of icons of the patron Saint Lucia and Saint Marciano, the first bishop of the city.