Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah

Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah (* 1874 in Vellalan Vilai, Thoothukudi District , India ; † January 1, 1945 ), also written as Vedanayakam Samuel Azariah , was a pioneer of Christian ecumenism in India. He was the first Indian bishop in the churches of the Anglican Communion and was ordained as Bishop of the Diocese of Dornakal in December 1912.

Life

Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah was born in India in 1874, in the village of Vellalan Vilai, in the Thoothukudi district (now Tamil Nadu ). He was the son of the Anglican pastor Thomas Vedanayagam and his wife Ellen. Azariah lost his father at an early age. He was educated at Christian mission schools and at Madras Christian College.

Azariah married Anbu Mariammal Samuel, a fellow student. They had six children.

In 1893, at the age of nineteen, he became an evangelist in the Christian Association of young men YMCA (Young Men Christian Association YMCA), and was secretary of the YMCA in South India from 1895 to 1909. He recognized the need for inculturation of the Christian mission, and 1903 he became a co-founder of the Indian Missionary Society (based in Tinnevelly ) and in December 1905 he was one of the founders of the National Missionary Society. For many years he was chairman of the National Christian Council.

In 1909 he left the YMCA ministry, was ordained an Anglican priest, and began missionary work among the pariah in Hyderabad . Azariah had unusual mission methods. When he attended a church, he asked all the baptized to put a hand on their head - a reminder of the laying on of hands at baptism - and to say, I am a baptized Christian, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. (1 Cor. 9:16)

In 1910 he spoke at the World Mission Conference in Edinburgh about the necessity of Indian cultural forms in missions and in worship, but also criticized the racist manners of white missionaries. In December 1912 he was ordained as the first bishop of the Anglican diocese of Dornakal in Andhra Pradesh - the first Indian Anglican bishop in India. As bishop, he ordained many Indians to Anglican priests, and in 1936 he dedicated the new Cathedral of the Epiphany in Dornakal, which was built entirely in the Indian style.

Azariah saw that the Church's mission should be an expression of its unity and therefore took a leading role in negotiating the formation of the United Church of South India . This was founded in 1947, two years after his death.

With Bishop Henry Whitehead he wrote the book Christ in the Indian Villages (1930). In 1936 he published India and the Christian Movement . His book Christian Giving , published in 1954, has been translated into several languages. He also wrote articles on Christian mission, e.g. B. “The necessity of Christian unity for proselytizing the world” and “The spread of Christianity”.

literature

• Susan B. Harper: In the Shadow of the Mahatma. Bishop VS Azariah and the travails of Christianity in British India (Studies in the history of Christian Missions). Eerdsmans, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-8028-3874-X .
• Knud Heiberg: VS Azariah, bishop of Dornakal . Skjern, Copenhagen 1950.
• Percy Barnabas Emmet: Apostle of India. Azariah, bishop of Dornakal . SCM Press, London 1949.
• Carol Graham: Azariah of Dornakal . Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Delhi 1972 (reprint of the London 1946 edition).
• John Z. Hodge: Bishop Azariah of Dornakal . The Christian Literature Society for India, Madras 1946.
• Gardiner M. Day: Azariah of Dornakal. 1874-1945 . Episcopal Church Press, New York 1959.