Therese of Lisieux was beatified in 1923 and canonized just two years later, an extraordinarily rapid elevation by Church standards. Pope Pius XI, who placed his entire pontificate under her spiritual patronage, gave full support to building a basilica worthy of her growing cult. The Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux, Thomas-Paul-Henri Lemonnier, launched the project in the city where Therese had lived her brief religious life. Construction began in 1929, funded entirely by donations and special contributions from nations around the world. The depth of global devotion is inscribed into the building itself: 18 minor altars were offered by different countries, each one a tribute from a distant congregation to a nun who never traveled beyond Normandy.

On 11 July 1937, the basilica was blessed by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the papal legate who would soon become Pope Pius XII. Then the Second World War arrived. Allied bombing destroyed two-thirds of Lisieux during the Battle of Normandy in 1944, yet the basilica's basic structure, completed before the war, survived with only minor damage. That summer, the townspeople who remained in the ruined city took refuge in the building's crypt. The Carmelites of Lisieux sheltered there too, including two of Therese's own surviving sisters, elderly nuns hiding beneath the church dedicated to their sibling. Construction resumed after the war, and the basilica was consecrated on 11 July 1951. Final completion came in 1954, a quarter-century after the first stone was laid.

The interior is decorated with marble and mosaics depicting key moments from Therese's life: her baptism, first communion, the miraculous healing she attributed to the Virgin Mary's smile, her commitment to religious life, and her death. The effect is vivid and deeply personal, a saint's biography told in stone and colored glass. Outside, a bell tower built in the 1960s stands separate from the main building on the square. It was never fully finished; the Church chose to prioritize charitable work over architectural completion. The tower holds 51 bells donated by Belgium and the Netherlands, and it rings carillon concerts twice daily. A worship chapel for silent prayer was added in 2000, accessible through the crypt, offered as an Irish ex-voto to Saint Therese.

East of the apse, a Way of the Cross leads to tombs that once held the remains of Therese's parents, Louis Martin and Marie-Azelie Guerin. Their causes for beatification were introduced in 1957, and in an unprecedented move, Pope Paul VI united the two causes into one. Pope John Paul II declared them venerable in 1994, and they were beatified together at the basilica in October 2008. Pope Francis canonized them on 18 October 2015, making them the first married couple canonized together in Church history. The basilica thus honors not only its patron saint but an entire family whose lives became inseparable from the story of Catholic devotion. Pope John Paul II himself visited the basilica on 2 June 1980, affirming its place among the great spiritual destinations of Europe.