Aloysius Pazheparambil

Mar Aloysius Pazheparambil, often Pareparambil ( born March 25, 1847 in Pulinkunnu in Alleppey, Kerala, † December 9, 1919 in Ernakulam, Kerala ) was titular bishop and first Vicar Apostolic of the Syro-Malabar Vicariate of Ernakulam.

Life and work

Carmelite priest and

Aloysius Pazheparambil was born in Pulinkunnu at Alleppey. In this important parish of the Catholic Thomas Christians, the blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara in 1861 founded the monastery of his fifth men's Order of " Carmelites of Mary Immaculate ", entered the Pazheparambil and on December 4, 1870 was ordained priest.

At that time were under the local Catholic Thomas Christians, together with the Latin Catholics, nor the Apostolic Vicar of Verapoly. It always came back to friction as these Latin bishops mustered only little understanding of the liturgy of the Thomas Christians foreign to them and aspired to a more or less strong alignment with the Latin rite. As so many times in the past, it was in 1874 by a delegated by the Syro- Catholic Patriarchate of Babylon to India bishop named Elias Mellus who worked without the permission of Rome among the Thomas Christians of great confusion. Aloysius Pazheparambils order of the " Carmelites of Mary Immaculate " was one of the staunchest defenders of the Church's unity and fighting the illegal acting bishop Mellus sustainable. Although Mellus finally gave in, drifted a part of his followers in a schism and split 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 " called for the establishment of the Catholic bishops of their own rite, to rule over them. Father Aloysius Pazheparambil was the head and spokesman of this group and was therefore in 1875, ejected along with everyone else, by Leonardo Mellano, the Apostolic Vicar of Verapoly from the Order.

Pope Leo XIII. However attacked soon this idea, sparked in 1887 Catholic Thomas Christians, today's Syro - Malabar, generally from the Latin jurisdiction out and built exclusively for you, the two Apostolic Vicariate of Trichur and Kottayam, among the Latin bishops Adolph Edwin Medlycott and Charles Lavigne. Both were the Thomas Christians and their rite an open mind and prepared the transition to local bishops. This happened in 1896, resigned as Medlycott and Lavigne on papal statement and the emerged from their two vicariates Trichur and Kottayam three Vicariate of Trichur, Ernakulam and Changanacherry. In that year, for the first time entered the Syro -Malabar titular bishops as apostolic vicars to the top of Sprengel. One of these, the Vicar Apostolic of Ernakulam, Aloysius was Pazheparambil.

Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

Aloysius Pazheparambil was one of the closest collaborators of the bishops Adolph Edwin Medlycott and Charles Lavigne. On August 11, 1896 we appointed him titular bishop of Tymandus and Vicar Apostolic of the new diocese of Ernakulam. The episcopal ordination gave him the Apostolic Delegate of the East Indies, Archbishop Ladislas Zaleski on 25 October of the year, at his residence Kandy (Sri Lanka). On November 5, 1896 Pazheparambil stepped up to the government of his diocese, which he managed with great skill and zeal until his death in 1919. He was given the task of rebuilding all diocesan structures, as well as to develop its rite after centuries of oppression again.

He was buried in the (old) Cathedral of St. Mary of Ernakulam, which has now given way to a new building. There you have re- interred his remains in March 1974. His episcopal successor Mar Augustine Kandathil, from 1923, the first Archbishop of the Syro -Malabar Church, let him put the following grave inscription:

" A prelate with a special devotion to the Virgin Mary, just in its kind, modest in his demeanor, always give to the interests of his ritual and his nation, steadfast in his resolutions, but tactful in execution, a scholar, a linguist, a historian and diplomat - he was a great Indian. "