New Syro-Malankara exarchate at Khadki

New Syro-Malankara Exarchate at Khadki
Reporters Name | CAMIL PARKHE | Friday, 27 March 2015
Khadki: In a major decision, Pope Francis on Thursday has established a new Kirkee-Pune exarchate (vicariate) for Malayalam-speaking Syro-Malankara Catholics in south India having its cathedral at St Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church in Khadki.
Thomas Mar Anthonios Valiyavilayil will be the first bishop of the new exarchate.
With this Holy See announcement, Pune will now have two Roman Catholic bishops, the other being Latin Catholic rite Bishop Thomas Dabre.
Roman Catholic Church recognises 21 rites worldwide and three of them are in India, namely Latin rite, Syro-Malabar rite and Syro-Malankara rite.
Bishop Thomas Mar Anthonios is at present in Australia to lead the Holy Week celebrations of the Syro-Malarkara community there.
Bishop Thomas Mar Anthonios, belonging to the Order of the Imitation of Christ (OIC), was born in 1955 at Adoor. He was ordained a priest in 1980 and elected bishop of the curia in 2010. Apart from English and Malayalam, he speaks Italian, German, Hindi, Syriac and reads Greek and Latin.
The new Kirkee-Pune exarchate will be spread over six states in south India except Kerala. The states include Maharashtra, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and some parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The new exarchate will have  27 parishes. There are 21 priests dedicated to pastoral care, 13 convents of nuns and a dozen schools, including a college of higher education.
Fr Mathew Varikkattu, vicar of St Mary’s Malankara Church in Khadki, has expressed joy over the creation of the new  exarchate. The church has 80 families as parishioners.
On Thursday, Pope Francis also erected a new eparchy (diocese) of St John Chrysostom of Gurgaon with Jacob Mar Barnabas Aerath as the first eparchial bishop.
With this, the Vatican has granted the Syro-Malankara Church ecclesiastical authority for the whole territory in India.
Speaking to Sakal Times, Bishop Thomas Dabre welcomed establishment of the new exarchate in the city. “It is good news for the Catholics, especially the Syro-Malankara community in Maharashtra and other parts of south India,” he said.

Investiture ceremony
Thomas Mar Anthonios will be consecrated the first bishop of the new Kirkee-Pune exarchate at a ceremony to be held at the new cathedral in Khadki on Saturday, May 30. The ceremony will be attended by the Vatican  ambassador in India Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India president Cardinal Baselios Cardinal Cleemis Catholicos and Pune Bishop Thomas Dabre.

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शशिकांत बोर्डे - Friday, 3 April 2015 AT 06:37 PM IST
कमिलजी मराठी भाषेला थोडतरी महत्व द्या कारण आपण मराठी मातीतूनच शिकलो सावरलो बागडलो तेव्हा मराठीला विसरू नका