Syro-Malabar Church redraws boundaries to boost mission across India

Fr Tom Olikarott said the new appointments and pastoral arrangements give new vitality to the missionary aspirations of the Syro-Malabar Church.

The Syro-Malabar Church in India reorganised the territories of 12 of its dioceses and created four new provinces to improve its administrative and pastoral efficiency,

At the end of the meeting of its Synod on 18-29 August, the Church announced the new provinces – Faridabad in northern India, Ujjain in central India, Kalyan in the west and Shamshabad in the south – and elevated bishops as metropolitan archbishops in these provinces. Two new prelates were also appointed.

The announcements, approved by the Vatican, were made by the Syro-Malabar primate Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil during the general assembly on 28 August, according to Fr Abraham Kavilpurayidathil, Major Episcopal Chancellor of the Church.

The thirty-third Syro-Malabar Synod of Bishops was meeting at Mount St Thomas, Kakkanad, in the Ernakulam district of the southern state of Kerala.

The Church obtained all-India jurisdiction with the erection of the Shamshabad Eparchy on 9 October 2017. Subsequently, all territories not yet assigned to any eparchy were made part of the newly-erected eparchy by Pope Francis.

This vast jurisdiction was spread across twenty-three states, four union territories and two islands. To improve its administration, the Synod decided to reorganise the territories of eleven eparchies outside Kerala, the Church’s main base, by redistributing certain areas of the Shamshabad Eparchy.

The Faridabad province, headed by Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara, comprises the suffragan eparchies of Bijnor and Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh state.

The Ujjain province incorporates Sagar, Satna and Jagdalpur in Madhya Pradesh as suffragan eparchies under the leadership of Archbishop Sebastian Vadakel.

The Kalyan province, headed by Archbishop Sebastian Vaniyapurackal, comprises the suffragan eparchies of Chand in Maharashtra and Rajkot in Gujarat.

The Shamshabad province, led by Archbishop Antony Prince Panengaden, includes Adilabad in Telengana state.

Additionally, the Hosur Eparchy in Tamil Nadu will now come under the archeparchy of Trichur.

The Synod also announced the appointment of new bishops – Claretian Fr James Patteril as Bishop of Belthangadi in southern Karnataka state and Fr Joseph Thachaparambath of the Carmelite of Mary Immaculate as Bishop of Adilabad.

The Synod unanimously ratified a resolution to resolve the five-year liturgy dispute in the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly, where clergy and laity insisted on celebrating the Holy Qurbana versus populum rather than partly ad orientem, as required by the Synod.

Fr Tom Olikarott, spokesperson of the Church, said the new appointments and pastoral arrangements give new vitality to the missionary aspirations of the Syro-Malabar Church.

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