Devasahayam Pillai
Devasahayam Pillai ; Birth name Neelakandan Pillai (born April 23, 1712 in Nattalam , Kingdom of Travancore , † January 14, 1752 in Aralvaimozhi , Tamil Nadu, India) was a high-ranking Hindu and court official of the Raja of Travancore. He converted to Catholicism in 1745 and was persecuted and executed for it; in Kerala and Tamil Nadu he is venerated as a regional saint, on December 2, 2012 he was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.
Origin and youth
Pillai belonged to the Hindu nobility caste of the Nayar and was brought up as a devout Hindu and warrior by his mother's brother, according to their customs . He served his king Marthanda Varma as court official in his palace at Padmanabhapuram and was very respected.
convert
At court he made friends with Eustachius de Lannoy , a Flemish who was captured as an officer in the Dutch East India Company in 1741 and who was the army chief of the Kingdom of Travancore for many years. He was married to an Indian woman and had his own chapel in the Udayagiri Fort, near the royal palace; the Maharaja had granted him and his family the freedom to practice the Catholic faith.
Pillai was impressed by his personality and his deep faith, which is why he also wanted to become a Christian. Before their change of faith, the Indian Catholics from de Lannoy's circle belonged to the lowest Indian population groups with whom high-ranking Hindus were not allowed to associate. The government also tolerated the conversion of such people, but not that of higher-ranking Hindus, the state-supporting stratum. Since Eustachius de Lannoy knew about the danger of a change of faith for a Hindu noble and royal servant, he sent him to Vadakkankulam outside the state of Travancore, in a territory ruled by Muslims, for lessons and baptism . He provided him with a personal letter of recommendation to the local priest, Father JB Buttari SJ, who also feared serious complications and only after a long hesitation baptized him on May 14, 1745. At baptism he was given the first name "Devasahayam" (God helps), by which he became known.
In Vadakkankulam there is still great veneration for the witness of the faith and parts of his clothes and his turban, which he wore at the royal court, are kept at the baptistery. There in Vadakkankulam he is said to have married his Christian wife later and she was buried at the church after his death.
Confessors and Martyrs
After the change of faith he returned home and worked as a Christian for another four years at the king's court. His wife also converted and took the name Gnanapu (Theresa). It seems that Devasahayam Pillai has become the organizer of the local Christian church. In the beatification acts it is recorded that a travancoric minister wanted to drive out the Christians there and Pillai answered him frankly: "If you want to persecute the Christians, start with me, because I am their leader" . This public confession led to the imprisonment of the Catholic on February 23, 1749, who was soon followed by a death sentence for not renouncing his new faith. They wanted to mock the royal courtier, who had become a Christian, to the Hindu population, tied him, clad only in a loincloth, tied upside down on a water buffalo and adorned him with the white milk-secreting flowers of the madar bush (calotropis gigantea). In this elevator he was driven through the surrounding villages of the kingdom, the names of which have been passed down precisely. In the local Hindu tradition, such a buffalo procession was one of the most humiliating treatments ever. The files testify that Devasahayam Pillai, despite his public mockery, remained completely calm and even greeted passers-by he knew. He also prayed constantly.
The prisoner came to Puliurkurichy and was visited in droves by Christians and other people. The mocking procession had really made him known. According to tradition, by hitting a rock in Puliurkurichy, he let a spring spring up, which still exists there as a place of pilgrimage. He was therefore taken to Peruvilai, a little further away, where he was left to camp for seven months in the open air, tied to a tree. Here, too, he attracted numerous admirers and was therefore relocated again, now in the extreme southeast of the country, to Aralvaimozhi, a notorious place of exile for prisoners, on the state border between Travancore and the Principality of Madurai . Even here, Devasahayam Pillai, as a confessor , attracted more and more believers. He led a life of prayer and penance. He also read religious scriptures, especially from the lives of the saints, which he read aloud and explained when believers appeared. He fasted every Friday because of Jesus' death on the cross and every Saturday to worship Mary, the Mother of God. A priest who brought him communion was amazed at his inner happiness and steadfastness, despite the long imprisonment and impending death.
On January 14, 1752, shortly before midnight, Pillai was dragged into the forest, up a hill called the Kattadimalai. Before death he asked to be allowed to pray what was granted to him. According to tradition, he got down on his knees and supported himself with his elbows, which formed impressions in the stone floor that are still shown today. Around midnight, the soldiers shot him there with several musket shots.
Posthumous adoration
His body was thrown into a ravine, where it was later found, eaten and torn by the animals. The remains were buried in the Franz-Xaver Church of Kottar (now Nagercoil), in front of the high altar, which was completely unusual for a layman and suggests his contemporary veneration as a martyr.
The responsible bishop of Cochin, Clemens Joseph Colaco Leitao , was himself one of Devasahayam Pillai's admirers. On the occasion of his martyrdom, he issued a pastoral letter to his diocesans and ordered the chanting of a solemn Te Deum for a specific day. Leitao also wrote a detailed report on the case, dated November 15, 1756, and sent it to Rome, to Pope Benedict XIV. This report has been preserved in the original and is the main source for the beatification of the Indian.
The later Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Cranganore , Joseph Kariathil (1742–1786) and his companion or successor in office Thomman Paremakkal († 1799) submitted a petition to the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Canonization of the canonization of 1779 during their stay in Rome Devasahayam Pillai, but no concrete steps were taken at the time.
Ladislaus Zaleski , Apostolic Delegate of the East Indies, toured the area around 1890, did extensive research on the martyr and described him in 1913 in his book "The Martyrs of India" .
Gordon Thomson Mackenzie, Protestant and British resident in the Kingdom of Travancore, mentioned the martyrdom of Pillais in 1901 in his work "Christianity in Travancore" .
On April 16, 1913, Alois Benziger , who is now Bishop of Quilon responsible for Kottar , had the grave there opened in front of the high altar of the Franz-Xaver Church. There was a box with four large bones, three individual fragments of the skull and about 30 smaller bone parts, as well as two antique keys and two silver tablets, but the inscription was illegible.
In 1930 the southern part of the Quilon diocese was formed into the independent Kottar diocese . The old Franz-Xaver Church with the grave of Devasahayam Pillai became the new cathedral of the diocese.
In 1984 an official committee was formed to carry out the beatification of the Indian convert. It collected files and discovered u. a. the already mentioned report by Bishop Clemens Joseph Colaco Leitao from 1756. It became the main document of the trial. This was opened in 1993 at the diocesan level, concluded with a positive result and in 2008 the case was passed on to Rome for the final decision. The beatification took place on December 2, 2012 in the Indian city of Nagercoil (formerly Kottar).
The feast day is January 14th, the day of martyrdom.
T. Krishnan, born in 1976 in Attoor, Kanyakumari District , Tamil Nadu, as a Hindu, claims to have been cured of a severe form of polio within seconds on April 24, 1990, on Mount Kattadimalai (execution site) after him the blessed had appeared. He therefore converted to the Catholic faith with his entire family, took the name Devasahayam as his baptismal name and, as a thank you, wrote a book about Devasahayam Pillai in 2012, in which he also describes his own healing. (T. Maria Devasahayam: "Lover of Christ, Devasahayam Pillai" , Anal Publications, Paloor, Karingal 629151, Tamil Nadu, 2012)
gallery
The alleged knee and elbow prints at the execution site
Close up of the footprints
Church of the Holy Sepulcher, St. Francis-Xavier Cathedral, Kottar, Nagercoil
Above the old grave slab, below the new grave; relics embedded in between
Relics of the Blessed, let into the grave for veneration
literature
- Ladislaus Zaleski : The Martyrs of India . Cordialbail Press, Mangalore 1913.
- H. Hosten SJ: Lazarus Devasahayam, the Travancore martyr . In: The Examiner (India's oldest Catholic newspaper), November 20, 1926
- PJ Mascreen: Devasahayam Pillai to Indian Martyr . Bishops Press, Quilon 1956
- J. Rosario Narchison: Martyr Devasahayam, a documented history . The Committee for the Beatification of Martyr Devasahayam, Nagercoil, 2002.
- T. Maria Devasahayam: Lover of Christ, Devasahayam Pillai . Anal Publications, Paloor, Karingal 629151, Tamil Nadu, 2012
Web links
- Web portal of the martyr Devasahayam Pillai
- Biographical website
- Website with a tabular biography
- Richly illustrated website on Devasahayam Pillai and the places of his worship
Individual evidence
- ^ Photo page about the church of Vadakkankulam
- ↑ The source of Puliurkurichy (6th picture) ( Memento from June 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The report of Bishop Leitaos on the martyrdom of Devasahayam Pillai (original pages can be enlarged at the end of the website) ( Memento of the original of November 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ to Archbishop Joseph Kariathil ( Memento of 6 July 2010 at the Internet Archive )
- ↑ To the Archbishops Joseph Kariathil and Thomman Paremakkal
- ↑ On the history of the Diocese of Kottar, with a detailed mention of Devasahayam Pillai and a picture of the cathedral that houses his tomb ( Memento from May 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Beatification ( Memento of December 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pillai, Devasahayam |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pillai, Lazarus; Pillai, Neelakandan |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hindu and court official of the Raja of Travancore |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 23, 1712 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nattalam , Kingdom of Travancore |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 14, 1752 |
| Place of death | near Aralvaimozhi , Tamil Nadu, India |