Missionaries of Charity

Mother Teresa's home, tomb, and the charitable order she founded

Address 54A Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Road, Kolkata 700016
Opening Hours Tomb open daily 08:00-12:00, 15:00-17:30; volunteers by arrangement

The Motherhouse of the Missionaries of Charity on AJC Bose Road is where Mother Teresa lived and worked for most of her life in Kolkata, and where she is buried. The white marble tomb in the ground-floor chapel is a place of quiet pilgrimage for visitors from around the world. A small museum on the upper floor displays her belongings: her simple white-and-blue sari, her sandals, and a few personal letters.

The order continues its work from this building, and the gates are open to visitors during specific hours. If you wish to volunteer — the order runs homes for the destitute and dying, orphanages, and clinics — applications are handled at the Motherhouse in person on weekdays. The simplicity of the place, surrounded by Kolkata's noise, is affecting.

things to do sight historic house
A story
Mother Teresa arrived in Kolkata in 1929 and worked among the city's poor for nearly seven decades. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 with just thirteen members; by the time of her death in 1997 the order ran over 600 missions in 123 countries. She is buried in a simple tomb in the motherhouse where she lived — a deliberate contrast to the splendour of the colonial city she had made her home.

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