Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Tiruvalla (Fides Service) - Pope Benedict XVI gave his assent to the 8 February 2007 election by the Synod of Bishops for the Syro-Malankar Church of Archbishop Isaac Cleemis Thoyyunkal, until now Metropolitan Archbishop of Tiruvalla, to Major Archbishop of Trivandrum for Syro-Malankar Catholics. The Archbishop Major succeeds Cyril Mar Baselios, who died on 18 January. The new Archbishop Major, also vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India CBCI, will be installed on 2 March.
Born in 1959 in Kerala, Mar Isaac Cleemis was ordained a priest on 11 June 1986. He has served as vice rector on Bathery Seminary, and chancellor and syncellus of the parish Bathery Eparchy. He was ordained a bishop on 15 August 2001. He served the Malankara Catholics settle din New York between 2001 and 2003.
Catholics in India belong to three rites, Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara. The latter two take their origin from the preaching of Saint Thomas in India in the 1st century, and the faithful are in fact known as St Thomas Catholics.
The remarkable vitality of this Church is seen from an abundance of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. The Syro-Malankar Church has five dioceses or eparchies and about 600,000 faithful, served by 600 priests and about 2,000 women religious of 16 different congregations engaged in a variety of spiritual and apostolic services. It has about 500 seminarians,. The Syro-Malankara Church runs 480 charity service centres and about the same number of schools of various grades. (PA)( Agenzia Fides 16/2/2007 righe 27 parole 270)
