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 Anglican Communion churches, and was consecrated as Bishop of the Diocese Dornakal in December 1912.

Life

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

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

In 1893, at the age of nineteen, he was an evangelist in the Christian Association of young men YMCA (Young Men 's 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 was 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 work, was ordained an Anglican priest and began his missionary work among the pariahs in Hyderabad. Azariah had unusual missionary methods. When he visited a church, he urged all the baptized to to to lay a hand on her head - a reminder of the laying on of hands at baptism - and to say I am a baptized Christian, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. ( 1.Kor.9, 16)

In 1910 he spoke at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh on the need of Indian cultural forms in mission and worship, but also criticized racist manners white missionaries. In December 1912 he was ordained as the first bishop of the Anglican Diocese Dornakal in Andhra Pradesh - the first Indian Anglican Bishop in India. As bishop, he dedicated many Indians to Anglican priests, and in 1936 he consecrated the new Cathedral of the Epiphany in Dornakal, which had been built entirely in the Indian style.

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

Together with Bishop Henry Whitehead he wrote the book Christ in the Indian Villages ( 1930). 1936, published by, India and the Christian Movement. His book, Christian Giving, which appeared in 1954, was translated into several languages. He also wrote articles about the Christian mission, eg " The need for Christian Unity for the evangelization of the world" and "the spread of Christianity ."