Aloysius Pazheparambil

Mar Aloysius Pazheparambil

Mar Aloysius Pazheparambil, 1896

Mar Aloysius Pazheparambil , often Pareparambil ( Malayalam മാർ ലൂയിസ് പഴേപറമ്പിൽ Mār Lūyis Paḻēpaṟampil * 25. March 1847 in Pulinkunnu in Alleppey , Kerala , † 9. December 1919 in Ernakulam , Kerala) was titular and first Apostolic Vicar of the Syro-Malabar Vicariate Ernakulam .

Live and act

Carmelite and priest

Aloysius Pazheparambil was born in Pulinkunnu near Alleppey. In this important parish of Catholic Thomas Christians, the Blessed Curiac Elias Chavara founded the fifth monastery of his male order, the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate , in 1861, which Pazheparambil entered and was ordained priest on December 4, 1870 .

At that time the Catholic Thomas Christians there, together with the Latin Catholics, were still subordinate to the Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly . There was always friction because these Latin bishops showed little understanding for the liturgy of the Thomas Christians, which was alien to them, and sought a more or less strong alignment with the Latin rite. As has often happened in the past, there was great confusion in 1874 by a bishop named Elias Mellus , who was sent to India by the Syro-Catholic Patriarchate of Babylon and who was working under the Thomas Christians without Rome's permission. Aloysius Pazheparambil's Order of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate was one of the most loyal defenders of ecclesiastical unity and fought hard against the illegally acting Bishop Mellus. Although Mellus finally gave in, some of his followers drifted into a schism and split off from the Catholic Church. Against this background and in order to avoid such harmful developments in the future, a group of 10 monks of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate demanded the establishment of Catholic bishops of their own rite to rule over them. Father Aloysius Pazheparambil was the head and spokesman of this group and was therefore expelled from the Order in 1875, along with all others, by Leonardo Mellano, Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly.

Pope Leo XIII. However, he soon took up this idea, in 1887 removed the Catholic Thomas Christians, today's Syro-Malabars , generally from the Latin jurisdiction and established the two Apostolic Vicariates Trichur and Kottayam exclusively for them , under the Latin bishops Adolph Edwin Medlycott and Charles Lavigne . Both were open to the Thomas Christians and their rite and prepared the transition to local bishops. This happened in 1896, when Medlycott and Lavigne resigned on papal instructions and the three vicariates Trichur, Ernakulam and Changanacherry emerged from their two vicariates Trichur and Kottayam . That year, for the first time, Syro-Malabar titular bishops came to head the district as Apostolic Vicars. One of them, the Vicar Apostolic of Ernakulam, was Aloysius Pazheparambil.

Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

The three new Vicars Apostolic of the Catholic Thomas Christians in India, 1896. From left: Aloysius Pazheparambil, Mathew Makil , John Menachery

Aloysius Pazheparambil was one of the closest collaborators of Bishops Adolph Edwin Medlycott and Charles Lavigne. On August 11, 1896, he was appointed titular bishop of Tymandus and apostolic vicar of the new district of Ernakulam. He was ordained bishop by the Apostolic Delegate of the East Indies, Archbishop Ladislaus Zaleski, on October 25 of the same year in his residence in Kandy ( Sri Lanka ). On November 5, 1896, Pazheparambil took over the government of his diocese, which he led with great skill and zeal until his death in 1919. He was given the task of rebuilding all diocesan structures, as well as developing his rite again after centuries of oppression.

He was buried in the (old) Cathedral of St. Mary of Ernakulam, which has since given way to a new building. His bones were reburied there in March 1974. His episcopal successor Mar Augustine Kandathil , from 1923 the first archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church, had the following grave inscription placed for him:

“A prelate with special devotion to the Virgin Mary, simple in his manner, modest in his demeanor, always devoted to the interests of his rite and his nation, unwavering in his decisions but tactful in execution, a scholar, a linguist, a historian and diplomat - he was a great Indian. "

- Epitaph from St. Mary's Cathedral, Ernakulam

literature

• IC Chacko, Illiparambil: Mar Louis Pazheparambil. Trivandrum, 1937.

Web links

Commons : Aloysius Pazheparambil  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Aloysius Pazheparambil on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on February 14, 2017.
• Website about Bishop Mar Aloysius Pazheparambil

predecessor	Office	successor
-	Apostolic Vicar of Ernakulam 1896–1919	Augustine Kandathil