THE BISHOP WITH THE BEGGING BOWL

Commemorating Blessed Alvares Mar Julius Metropolitan (23^rd September)

There are lives whose meaning is disclosed not by the honours they received, but by the cost at which they remained faithful. Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares, remembered by the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church as Blessed Alvares Mar Julius Metropolitan, was born into privilege, educated for the priesthood, admired as an orator and journalist, and eventually raised to the episcopate. Yet the image that survives most powerfully is not that of a prelate enthroned in dignity. It is of an elderly bishop in a faded black cassock, walking through Panjim with a staff in one hand and a bowl in the other, collecting alms not merely for himself but for the poor who had found shelter in his home and continuing his daily round despite age, sickness, and public neglect. It is a story of a missionary vocation that extended beyond the familiar boundaries of Malankara.

At a time when the Malankara Church itself was struggling to preserve apostolic faith, ecclesial dignity, and freedom from external domination, it received into its communion a Goan priest wrestling with those same questions. Blessed Alvares Thirumeni’s life therefore cannot be understood simply as the story of a Roman Catholic priest who entered the Orthodox Church, nor only as that of a Goan patriot who opposed Portuguese authority. It is the story of a man who learned, often painfully, that fidelity to Christ may require one to stand against ecclesiastical power, colonial power, public opinion, and even one’s own earlier convictions.

Childhood

Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares was born on April 29, 1836, in Verna, in the Salcete region of Portuguese Goa. He was baptized a few days later, on May 6. Within the family he was affectionately known as Fanchu. His parents were José Batista Alvares and Marinha Expectação Lourenço. The Alvares family belonged to an old Goan Catholic household whose roots in Verna reached back through generations. Yet what distinguished the household in local memory was not simply property or lineage. The family was known as Devanghar, the “House of God,” a name associated with its religious character and works of charity. Fanchu therefore grew up in a home where faith expressed itself in hospitality, generosity, concern for those in need, and a sense of moral obligation toward the wider community.

Goa’s religious life was inseparable from Portuguese colonial rule. The long conflict between the Portuguese Padroado system and the jurisdiction claimed by the Roman authorities of Propaganda Fide was the Goa where Alvares was born into. The Padroado had given the Portuguese Crown extensive privileges in the organization of the Church in mission territories. Over time, however, disagreements over jurisdiction, episcopal appointments, and missionary authority produced confusion and division. 

After completing school, Alvares joined Rachol Seminary which was one of the most important centres of ecclesiastical learning in Goa. He completed his studies in philosophy and theology in 1859. Yet ordination did not immediately follow. The prevailing ecclesiastical disorder left the young seminarian without a bishop to ordain him. It was under these circumstances that he left Goa for Bombay.

Bombay

Bombay opened before Alvares a world very different from the villages and seminaries of Portuguese Goa. For a young Goan seminarian, it offered not only the possibility of ordination but an encounter with a wider India.

The precise details of his early employment there are not certain. He appears to have been associated with a Jesuit educational institution, possibly St. Mary’s at Mazagon, and may also have served in a subordinate capacity within one of Bombay’s Padroado parishes.

He developed a strong command of English, a skill unusual enough among Goan priests of his generation to become one of the great instruments of his later ministry. English gave him access to a broader intellectual world and enabled him to address audiences beyond Portuguese-speaking Goa. Bombay also brought him into closer contact with the power of the press. In the nineteenth century, newspapers were becoming a formidable public forum. They could expose administrative misconduct, educate ordinary citizens, challenge entrenched privilege, and carry local grievances beyond the control of provincial authorities. Alvares would eventually wield the pen almost as naturally as the preacher’s voice.

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1862 by Bishop Walter Steins, the Vicar Apostolic of Bombay. He remained in Bombay for some time, continuing his work and deepening his knowledge of English and urban life. When he eventually returned to Goa, he returned as a man prepared to enter public life.

Priest, Teacher, Healer, and Voice of Goa

From his return to Goa in 1867 at the age of 31 years, Padre Alvares lived the most publicly active period of his life. He settled in Panjim and entered with remarkable energy into pastoral ministry, education, charitable service, journalism, and civic advocacy.

His first fields of activity were priestly ministry and charity. Padre Alvares did not imagine charity as occasional generosity from a position of comfort. He sought organized forms of service capable of restoring dignity to those who had been abandoned. Along with fellow Goan priests Fr. Manuel Agostinho de Carvalho, Fr. Caetano Xavier de Abreu and Fr. Joaquim Santana Coelho, he started Panjim Charitable Association to assist the destitute and especially the wandering beggars. The efforts bore fruits and similar associations soon came up  in Verna, Ribandar, Santa Cruz, Mapusa and other parts of Goa.

This compassion became heroic during the cholera epidemic of 1878. His response to disease was pastoral, physical, and educational. The priest who preached salvation did not treat the suffering body as spiritually insignificant. For him, the Gospel had to enter the sickroom, the crowded street, and the homes from which others fled.

While fear caused many to withdraw from infected households, Padre Alvares entered them. He cared for the sick, carried homeless patients to places where they could receive help, and assisted with the burial of those who died without family support. He later published practical directions for the treatment of cholera and eventually issued an English version for a wider readership.

Education remained one of his deepest concerns. He believed that the renewal of Goa required not merely political reform but the formation of minds and consciences. In 1877 he established the College of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary with six eminent teachers, all priests. Among them were Fr. Lourenco de Figueiredo (Philosophy), Fr, Ricardo Filomeno da Costa (Latin) and Fr. Lapa of Salsete (Portuguese and French), and with resident and non-resident students, strict discipline being maintained among them by himself as director of the institution.

The institution did not endure, partly because of the illness and endemic that Panjim fell prey to and also because Fr. Alvares recently took editorship of the weekly ‘A Cruz”.

Padre Alvares’s desire to serve the oppressed also drew him toward journalism. He became closely associated with A Cruz-The Cross and later with publications including A Verdade, O Progresso de Goa, The Times of Goa, and O Brado Indiano. His writing addressed theology, ecclesiastical government, colonial administration, public health, education, agriculture, and the political rights of Goans. He was not always measured, nor was every controversy handled with equal prudence. Yet even his critics could not deny his fearlessness. He wrote because silence, in the face of injustice, seemed to him a betrayal.

He was also a gifted orator. When he spoke on behalf of the poor, his appeals could move listeners to generosity. His power did not arise merely from eloquence. People recognized that he had personally entered the suffering of those for whom he pleaded.

The conflict that altered the direction of his life emerged during the episcopate of Archbishop Dom Antonio Sebastiao Valente. In 1882, A Cruz was prohibited on the ground that it undermined ecclesiastical authority and disturbed the faithful. Padre Alvares challenged the prohibition in the civil courts and succeeded in having the ban lifted legally. The ecclesiastical condemnation nevertheless deprived the paper of readers and eventually brought about its end.

He responded by establishing A Verdade-The Truth. For Padre Alvares, the controversy had become more than a dispute over a newspaper. It raised agonizing questions about the nature of authority. Could ecclesiastical office be used to silence legitimate criticism? Was obedience owed to every exercise of power simply because it came clothed in religious colours?

Padre Alvares saw how easily ecclesiastical institutions could become entangled with colonial interests and how religious discipline could be employed to suppress rather than shepherd. His movement toward Orthodoxy must therefore not be reduced to resentment against one archbishop. Personal conflict undoubtedly sharpened the crisis, but the questions he faced were ecclesiological. He sought a form of Church authority that was apostolic without being autocratic and traditional without being imprisoned within the ambitions of empire.

Received by Malankara Orthodox Church

In 1887, at about fifty-one years of age, Padre Alvares entered the Orthodox Church in India. The decision cost him security, reputation, friendships, and the ecclesiastical world in which he had been formed. Yet it also brought him into communion with the ancient apostolic tradition preserved by the Malankara Church.

On July 29, 1889, at the Old Seminary in Kottayam, he was consecrated Metropolitan with the name Mar Julius. His jurisdiction extended over Goa, Ceylon, and India outside Malabar.

The breadth of the title was striking. Mar Julius received responsibility for an immense missionary field, but without the wealth, political patronage, or institutional machinery ordinarily associated with such an office. His episcopate would be sustained largely by personal sacrifice and the hospitality of scattered communities.

Mar Julius laboured in Goa, Canara, Brahmavar, Ceylon, and other regions connected with his jurisdiction. He was assisted particularly by Father Roque Zeferino de Noronha, another Goan priest who entered the Orthodox Church. The importance of this mission cannot be measured by numbers alone. Mar Julius demonstrated that Orthodoxy was not the possession of a single people, language, or region. The Malankara Church could receive a Goan priest formed in the Latin tradition, consecrate him to the episcopate, and send him to serve communities beyond Kerala. In him, the apostolic faith crossed linguistic and cultural boundaries without demanding that every distinction be erased.

He also resisted what he regarded as an unjust exercise of patriarchal authority when the position of the Malankara Metropolitan was threatened. This opposition grew naturally from the convictions for which he had already suffered. He had come to understand that apostolic authority is neither colonial privilege nor personal absolutism. It is conciliar, accountable, and ordered toward the building up of the Church.

The Cross of the Episcopate

His Grace Alvares Mar Julius Metropolitan returned to Goa in 1894 and began O Brado Indiano. The following year, Portuguese Goa was convulsed by the mutiny of Maratha soldiers. Although His Grace had no part in either rebellion, his newspaper defended the grievances of the soldiers and questioned the conduct of colonial officials. His earlier criticism of the administration made him a natural target.

On the evening of 19 August, at about 7:00 p.m., Alvares Thirumeni was returning from Santa Cruz in a horse-drawn carriage when he was intercepted and arrested by a group of policemen near the Phoenix Fountain. During the journey to the police station, the officers attempted to forcibly remove his pectoral cross and episcopal ring. Thirumeni resisted firmly, declaring that these sacred symbols could be taken from him only after his death. The violence employed against him, however, was so severe that he was ultimately stripped of his episcopal insignia by force.

The humiliation did not end there. The policemen removed the bishop's ecclesiastical vestments and paraded him to the police station clad only in his undergarments, subjecting him to public disgrace. Upon arrival, he was confined to a small, filthy cell measuring barely three metres by one and a half metres. The cramped enclosure reeked of urine and faeces and was devoid of even the most basic necessities. There was neither light nor ventilation, nor even a chair on which the aged bishop could rest. Yet amid this degradation, Alvares Thirumeni remained steadfast.

The humiliation was calculated. To strip a bishop publicly was to declare that his dignity did not exist. The vestments do not create the bishop; any more than stripping Christ of his garments could annul his kingship. Mar Julius’s dignity rested not in what the state permitted him to wear but, in the grace entrusted to him through ordination. It could tear the cross from his body, but it could not erase the Cross from his life.

He was accused of apostasy, of offending the official religion of the Portuguese realm, of unlawfully wearing episcopal insignia, and of threatening the security of the state. He produced evidence of his consecration as a bishop of the Malankara Orthodox Church. The charges could not be sustained, and the courts ordered his release.

His residence and papers were searched. After being released, Alvares Thirumeni was arrested again two days later citing treason and being a security threat both internally and externally. A leading lawyer Mr. F.X. Sales de Andrade offered security of Rs 5000 (a princely sum in those times!) for Alvares Thirumeni's bail which the judge accepted. The public prosecutor claimed that the offence was non-bailable and submitted an appeal in the High Court. Truth triumphed again as the High Court upheld the ruling of the lower court.

The Last Offering

Around 1912, aged and in declining health, Mar Julius returned permanently to Goa. Portugal had become a republic in 1910, and the separation of Church and state appeared to promise greater religious freedom. Yet the man who returned was materially exhausted. The man born into an established family, educated in renowned institutions, and consecrated to high ecclesiastical office now survived by begging, while still supporting others poorer than himself. His home in Fontainhas became a refuge for beggars, outcast labourers, sick people, and the destitute.

One day, a shopkeeper spat into his bowl. Mar Julius accepted the insult without anger and told the man, in effect, that the insult could be for him, but that something should still be given for the poor. On another occasion, he received a sum intended to support him for several days and almost immediately distributed it among beggars who gathered around him.

This was not theatrical poverty. It was the final form of a life given away. The bowl in his hand became an episcopal vessel, gathering the mercy of others so that it could be poured out again.

In September 1923, he fell seriously ill with dysentery and was admitted as an indigent patient to the charitable hospital at Ribandar. Attempts were made to persuade him to renounce his Orthodox allegiance and return to his former communion. He remained steadfast.

The Final Journey

23 September 1923 was a sombre Sunday for Chief Justice Antonio Floriano de Noronha.

On an ordinary Sunday, the Chief Justice could expect a familiar visitor at his doorstep; an elderly Orthodox bishop who would come seeking alms, not for himself, but for the poor whom he tirelessly served. Perhaps on that fateful morning Justice Noronha longed once more to hear the gentle voice of his cherished friend. But it was not to be.

News arrived from the Santa Casa de Misericórdia ("Holy House of Mercy"), now the site of the Goa Lokayukta, that the venerable Bishop Alvares had departed this earthly life. Earlier that month, the aged bishop had been afflicted with dysentery and had been admitted to the institution as an indigent patient.

The Gospel according to St. John recounts the story of Nicodemus, who came to Christ by night. Fearful of the Jewish authorities, he remained a hidden disciple for much of the Lord's earthly ministry. Yet the Crucifixion transformed him. The death of the One he loved gave him the courage to confess openly where his loyalties lay. Joining Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes and ensured that Christ received an honourable burial.

History often repeats this pattern. Sometimes the passing of a beloved soul becomes a catalyst that moves friends from silent admiration to public witness.

As soon as news of Thirumeni's death spread across Goa, a citizens' committee was formed to organise his funeral, with Chief Justice Noronha serving as its head. This was no small gesture. The same Portuguese establishment that had once viewed Bishop Alvares with suspicion now witnessed one of its highest officials publicly honouring him. By standing with his departed friend, Justice Noronha made a courageous statement. The Chief Justice understood what was at stake.

In his final days, Blessed Alvares Thirumeni had confided a solemn concern to his friends-“When I am on my deathbed, many priests of the Roman fold may come and advise me to renounce my faith. Due to ill-health and fatigue, I may move my head. Seeing my head movements, they will proclaim that I have nodded in agreement to what they instructed me. To ensure such things do not happen; I declare the following with you as a witness: I will never renounce my faith, even on my deathbed. If anyone claims that I have renounced my faith, then you are a witness to the fact that it is not true.” 

Thirumeni was equally insistent regarding his burial. His desire was that the funeral rites should be conducted by the Orthodox Church. If that proved impossible, then his friends themselves were to ensure that he was laid to rest with dignity and honour.

The time had now come to fulfil the wishes of their beloved Padre Alvares.

Determined that his final journey would not pass unnoticed, his friends set out to organise a funeral worthy of a life marked by courage, sacrifice, and unwavering faith. Their first step was to publish a notice in the daily newspaper Diário da Noite, inviting the people of Goa to participate in the funeral and pay tribute to the man who had lived and laboured for the poor.

The citizens' committee brought together some of the most respected figures of Goan society. Among them were Taumaturgo Pereira, the Attorney General, and Luiz de Menezes, the renowned journalist, freedom fighter, and the man often called the "Tilak of Goa." Both played a crucial role in organising the funeral procession.

The mortal remains of Blessed Alvares Thirumeni were brought to the Municipal Corporation Hall so that the public could offer their final respects. For nearly an entire day, an unbroken stream of mourners passed before his coffin.

Some of the most moving scenes came from the poor. Thousands of men and women whose lives had been touched by Thirumeni's generosity walked past in tears, praying for the repose of the one who had stood beside them in their suffering. Students organised themselves in shifts to ensure that the body was never left unattended, not even for a moment.

Once the public tributes concluded, the funeral procession began its solemn march through the streets of Panjim. Moving from the Municipal Corporation Hall, it passed through Novas Road, Albuquerque Road, Vasco da Gama Road, and Republic Avenue before crossing the St. Inez Bridge and arriving at the St. Inez Cemetery.

The procession reflected a remarkable cross-section of Goan society. Several eminent personalities of Goa were arranged in different rows during the funeral procession according to their position.

First Row- Capt. Jose Carneiro de Souza e Faro, representing the Governor General, Physician Minguel Caeitano Dias, Daniel Da Silva Bastis, Cesar Corriea Mendes, Joao de Figuriredo, Venctexa Desai.

Second Row- Jose Maria Pereira, Capt Aires de Sa, Nuno Goncalves, Borges Vas, Carmo Vaz ( representing Bardez municipality).

Third Row- Military officers- Tiao Livio Xavier, D. Francisco Menezes, D. Antonio Menezes, D. Carlos Menezes, Francisco Antonio Lobato da Faria, Minguel Rodrigues Ferreira.

Fourth Row- Government Professors- Adolfo Costa, Raul Fernandes, Alvito Miranda, Antonio Filipe Pereira (representing Margao Municipal Lycem), Frutuoso Fernandes, Jose Paulo Lobo.

Fifth Row- Press- Pereira Batalha, Sales de Andrade, Araujo Mascarenhas, F.X. Vales, J.A. Mousinho Lopes, Luis De Menezes.

Sixth Row- Dr Lucio dos Santos, Capt Lopes Pereira, Goncalves Potiot, Torcato Roncon, Olinto Gouveria Pinto, Joacquim Antonio Rebelo.

Seventh Row- Casmiro Nazare, Dr F.X. Lorenco, Pedro Figueiredo, Nicolai Menedes, Dr Grevi Figueiredo, Edmundo Fernandes.

Eighth Row- Aprigio Alfonso, Joao de Souza, Bruno Mesquita, Alfredo Araujo, Chico de Figueiredo, Eugemiano Alvares.

Ninth Row- Dr. Taumanturgo Pereira, Altinho Coelho, Ocataviano Ferreira, Silvestro de Souza, Jasso Fernandes, Eusebio Rodrigues.

Representatives of the Government, military officers, professors, journalists, civic leaders, and distinguished citizens marched together in orderly ranks. It was a public acknowledgment that the elderly bishop had transcended religious and social boundaries, earning respect from every segment of society.

Panjim had never witnessed a funeral of such magnitude.

For many, it was more than a funeral procession. It was a pilgrimage of gratitude. Thousands came not merely to bury a bishop but to bid farewell to a spiritual father whose life had become inseparable from the lives of the people he served.

Although the cemetery lay beside St. Inez Church, it was then, as it is now, under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Corporation. Blessed Alvares Thirumeni was laid to rest in the eastern section of the cemetery.

Over the years, a misconception arose that he had been buried in a section reserved for religious outcasts. This is not accurate. The grave had been purchased by one of his friends through the proper municipal procedures. However, the absence of clergy and the inability to conduct formal ecclesiastical burial rites contributed to this misunderstanding and gave rise to unfounded speculation.

At the graveside, four funeral orations were delivered: by César Correia Mendes, Director of Agriculture; Araujo Mascarenhas, professor of the Lyceum; Casimiro de Sequeira Nazare, representing the people of Fontainhas; and Cordato de Noronha, speaking on behalf of the youth.

Their words echoed the feelings of an entire people. The funeral was indeed a fitting tribute.

Seven days after his departure, friends and admirers gathered at Thirumeni's residence. Following a deeply emotional prayer service, alms were distributed to the poor in honour of the bishop whose life had been defined by charity and self-sacrifice.

Four years later, a large cement cross was erected over his grave. His mortal remains were reverently gathered, placed in a lead casket, and preserved at the Santa Ines Cemetery as a final expression of the love and gratitude of his friends.

Finding the Treasure

An air of anticipation surrounded the small group gathered at St. Inez Cemetery in the Santa Inez quarter of Panjim. It was an unusual emotion for a place ordinarily associated with sorrow, remembrance, prayer, and, for many, a quiet sense of dread. Yet on that afternoon the cemetery was not merely a resting place of the dead. It had become the setting for a long-awaited homecoming.

At about three o'clock, His Grace Dr. Philipose Mar Theophilus Metropolitan of the Bombay and Angamaly Diocese, Mr. Francis Alleluia Menezes, Chairman of the Panjim Municipal Council, Rev. Fr. T. E. Isaac, Vicar of St. Mary's Orthodox Church, Panjim, and members of the parish managing committee stood beside a solitary cross rising above a tangle of wild shrubs and overgrown vegetation.

That weather-beaten cross marked the resting place of a man who, almost half a century earlier, had dared to stand against both the colonial establishment and powerful ecclesiastical authorities, enduring persecution for the sake of his convictions. In many ways, the cross itself had become a silent simulacrum of the blessed soul resting beneath it, steadfast amid neglect, yet unforgotten.

As cemetery workers cleared away the dense undergrowth, those present bowed their heads before the tomb. Fixed upon it was a marble slab bearing a simple yet profound inscription:

"Padre Alvares, who was a great humanitarian missionary and a great patriot."

Months earlier, clear instructions had arrived from His Holiness Baselios Marthoma Mathews I, Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan- "Offer incense before opening the grave. Gather any bone fragments found therein. If there are none, then collect the uppermost layer of soil just beneath the grave, bring it to the church, and entomb it there with due honour."

The instructions reflected both reverence and uncertainty. No one knew what remained after fifty-six years. Theophilus Thirumeni offered incense and prayers at the graveside. The marble slab was carefully removed. Nearby, the bells of St. Inez Church rang across the cemetery grounds, announcing another funeral soon to take place. A large crowd had gathered in the vicinity, many unaware that a remarkable chapter in Orthodox history of Goa was about to unfold.

Everyone waited in anxious expectation.

The events of that afternoon were the culmination of a journey that had begun many years earlier.

In the years following Goa's liberation, there was no Orthodox church in Panjim. The faithful were few and scattered. Holy Qurbana was celebrated occasionally in military camps at Margao and Bambolim whenever a priest happened to be available. Later, Rev. Fr. Philip Pallichira began travelling from Mangalore once every month to celebrate the Holy Qurbana. Through these regular services, a vibrant Orthodox congregation slowly emerged in Goa.

A decisive moment came in 1967, when His Grace Mathews Mar Athanasios Metropolitan of the Outside Kerala Diocese (later His Holiness Baselios Marthoma Mathews I Catholicose and Malankara Metropolitan), visited Goa and celebrated the Holy Qurbana at St. Inez Church. The parish had generously opened its doors to the Orthodox faithful, enabling them to worship there.

Knowing that Bishop Alvares had spent his final years in Goa and had been buried somewhere in Panjim, Athanasios Thirumeni made inquiries after the service. During a conversation with Rev. Fr. Joaquim Augusto Dias, the Vicar of St. Inez Church, he learned not only about Blessed Alvares Thirumeni but also the exact location of his grave.

The bushes surrounding the site were cleared, and the long-neglected tomb was identified.

That very day, a gathering of Orthodox faithful resolved that Goa should one day have an Orthodox church of its own and that the relics of Blessed Alvares Thirumeni should ultimately be enshrined there. It was a bold vision for a small congregation with limited resources.

The dream would take another twelve years to become reality. On 23 September 1973, during the Golden Jubilee commemoration of Blessed Alvares Thirumeni's repose, the foundation stone for an Orthodox church at Ribander was laid. For the tiny community, the project seemed daunting. Financial constraints and practical difficulties loomed large, yet the faithful persevered.

Now, six years later, that dream was nearing its fulfilment. As workers carefully removed layers of cement and earth from the grave, a lead casket gradually came into view. It was gently lifted from the tomb and brought outside with profound reverence.

A hush fell over those assembled. With trembling hands, the cover of the casket was opened.

To the astonishment of all present, the bones of the venerable bishop lay intact and remarkably well preserved. Though his body had returned to the earth fifty-six years earlier, these sacred remains stood as a silent testimony to a life wholly dedicated to God.

The discovery moved many to tears. Overcome with emotion, Theophilus Thirumeni turned to the gathering and said: "Achen and I will take this. You may come later after the grave has been properly arranged."

His Grace Dr. Philipose Mar Theophilus Metropolitan (of blessed memory) at St Inez cemetery when the relics of Blessed Alvares Thirumeni were taken

Accompanied by Fr. Isaac, Theophilus Thirumeni proceeded immediately to St. Mary's Orthodox Church, Ribander, carrying the precious relics. Their joy was akin to that of men who had discovered a hidden treasure.

The lead box was covered with a black covering, and a sign of cross was made over it with a white cloth. Amidst candles and cross, the relics were kept for public viewing. Two days later, on Sunday, 7 October 1979, following the celebration of the Holy Qurbana, the sacred relics of Blessed Alvares Thirumeni were ceremoniously entombed in St. Mary's Orthodox Church, Ribander, Panjim.

Translocating the relics at St Mary's Orthodox Church, Ribander.

During the public meeting that followed, Theophilus Thirumeni made a remarkable prediction. He declared that the church and tomb would become a place of pilgrimage not merely for the Bombay Diocese (the parish now comes under the Brahmavar Diocese), but for the entire Malankara Orthodox Church.

When St. Mary's Church was subsequently rebuilt on the same site, the relics of Blessed Alvares Thirumeni were transferred to the present mausoleum adjacent to the sanctuary. In 2001, His Holiness Baselios Marthoma Mathews II, Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan, solemnly relocated the relics to their current resting place, where they continue to be venerated by countless faithful.

What began on that October afternoon was a reminder that holiness cannot remain buried forever, and a testimony that God's servants, though neglected by history for a season, are ultimately remembered in His providence.

The bishop with the begging bowl still speaks. He asks whether our episcopacy is truly pastoral, whether our mission crosses cultural boundaries, whether our theology touches the sick and hungry, whether our journalism serves truth rather than vanity, and whether our fidelity can survive the loss of applause. These are not merely questions about a saint of the past; they are questions that confront the Malankara Church in every generation. For if Blessed Alvares still stands among us as a witness, then we must also answer him.

By the prayers and intercessions of our father among the saints- Blessed Alvares Mar Julius Metropolitan of blessed memory, may the Lord have mercy upon us and help us.

In Christ,
Rincy

 

Ref:

1) Dr Samuel Chandanapally, Malankara Sabha Pithankanmaar, Volume 1, April 2012, chapter 4, Page 313, CeeDees Books, Pathanamthitta, Kerala.

2) Carmo Azevedo; Patriot and Saint- The Life Story of Bishop Mar Julius –I, Panjim 1988

3) George Kurian, Saint Alvares Mar Julius (A life history), St Mary’s Orthodox Church, Ribander, Goa.

4) Rev Fr. T.E Isaac, The great humanitarian missionary and a patriot (Malayalam), Malankara Sabha, September 2001, Pg-6,7.

5) Pratima Kamat, Mutiny in the Portuguese Army, Farar Far, Local resistance to colonial hegemony in Goa-1510-1912, Institute Menezes Braganza, Panaji, Goa.

THE FAMINE OF PERCEPTION

Reflection on the holy Gospel reading for the first Sunday after the Feast of Holy Cross

Old Testament reading: Genesis 42:1-8; Hosea 5:1-5; Isaiah 57:14-20

Holy Gospel reading: St. Mark 13:30-37

The setting of St. Mark chapter 13 begins with Christ on the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple, while Peter, James, John, and Andrew question Him privately concerning the future. The disciples gaze upon the splendour of Temple and wonder about coming events. At the conclusion of His discourse concerning tribulation, judgement, and the coming of the Son of Man, Christ gives His disciples neither a date to calculate nor a chronology to master but instead redirects them to the deeper task of watchfulness.

The concern of the disciples is when the Lord will come; His concern is how they will be found when He comes.

Watchfulness is often reduced to a temporal exercise, a strenuous refusal to sleep while counting the hours until an expected arrival. Yet in the Scriptures, watchfulness signifies something far deeper than anxious scrutiny of history or fearful anticipation of the world's end. Holy Scripture does not condemn bodily rest. Sleep itself is a gift of God, and the restoration of the body is part of the Creator's loving provision for His creatures. Rather, Christ warns against a more perilous sleep; the slumber of a soul that has lost its eschatological vision. 

It is possible to remain physically awake while becoming spiritually insensible, to continue living within God’s world while no longer expecting God, discerning His presence, or longing for His visitation. The sleeping soul may remain religiously active; it may participate in worship and occupy itself with sacred things. Yet beneath this outward activity, it neither recognises His presence nor His voice. It waits for Him at the end of history while repeatedly passing Him by within history. The deepest danger of spiritual sleep, therefore, is not merely that we cease to see. It is that we cease to see truly.

Genesis 42 provides a haunting Old Testament icon of this spiritual condition. Famine has driven Jacob's sons to go down to Egypt for grain, and they stand before the very brother they betrayed, but do not know him. "Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew him not" (Genesis 42:8). The poignancy of the scene lies in its terrible nearness. Joseph is not absent from them. He stands directly before them, sees them, hears them, and remembers them.

This is the tragedy of unwatchfulness in its most personal form; to stand in the presence of the one who bears life and salvation yet remain blind to his identity. Their failure of recognition is not merely the result of Joseph’s Egyptian appearance. Years of guilt and distance have dulled the faculty of recognition itself.

Against this failure of recognition stands one of the most luminous moments in the Gospel. When the Virgin Mary enters the house of Elizabeth and offers her greeting, the unborn John leaps within his mother’s womb, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. Joseph’s grown brothers stand before their deliverer and fail to recognise him; John, still hidden in the darkness of the womb, perceives the approach of his Lord and responds with joy. Those who possessed bodily sight remained spiritually blind, while the child, who is yet to behold the light of the day, recognised the Light of the world. The infant’s leap was the response of a life already made attentive by grace.

Watchfulness begins precisely here. It is the purification of perception by which the soul becomes capable of recognising Christ beneath the veils through which He chooses to approach us. The Lord who shall come in glory is also the Lord who comes quietly within history. He comes clothed in the distress of a neighbour, in the interruption of a stranger, in the silence of prayer, in the demands of mercy, and in the unspectacular duties of ordinary faithfulness.

The spiritually sleeping heart asks, “When will the Lord come?” even while the Lord stands unrecognised at its door. The great danger is not simply that Christ may come and find us physically asleep. It is that He may come as Joseph stood before his brothers, present but unknown, near but unrecognised, bearing the bread of life while we perceive only a stranger.

St. Mark himself gives us a beautiful embodiment of such watchfulness immediately after the conclusion of the discourse on Mount Olives with the story of the woman with the alabaster jar (St. Mark 14:3–9). In Bethany, an unnamed woman enters the house carrying an alabaster vessel of precious ointment. The disciples have heard Christ speak repeatedly of His suffering and death, yet they remain unable to comprehend. While the Twelve remain preoccupied with timetables and status, she alone perceives the sacred urgency. She cannot explain every event that is about to unfold. Yet she discerns the moment and responds to it with extravagant love by pouring the ointment upon the head of Christ. She watches because she loves, and because she loves, she sees.

The second Old Testament reading from Hosea 5 exposes the interior corruption by which spiritual vision is lost. The prophet addresses a people whose estrangement from God has become so deeply rooted that it now governs their very capacity to perceive. Hosea declares- “The pride of Israel testifies to his face” (v.5). Pride is both evidence and blindness. It exposes the soul’s estrangement from God while simultaneously preventing that soul from perceiving the truth about itself. Pride encloses the person within the narrow world of the self. The soul curves inward until it can no longer behold anything beyond its own reflection.

This is why the proud heart cannot watch. Watchfulness requires an openness to the unexpected movements of God, but pride has already decided where God may appear, how He must act, and through whom He is permitted to speak. When He comes in a form that unsettles our expectations, pride dismisses Him. When He speaks through a person we consider insignificant, pride refuses to listen. When He approaches through repentance, correction, or costly obedience, pride turns away. Hosea’s warning is consequently severe-we may possess sight and yet remain blind, hear the words of God and yet resist His voice, stand within the precincts of religion and yet fail to know the Lord.

Where Hosea unveils the blindness produced by pride, Isaiah 57 reveals the healing of vision through humility and contrition. Humility is not self-contempt, nor is contrition a denial of human dignity. Humility is the restoration of truth within the soul. It is the blessed release of making the self the centre of all things. The humble heart sees clearly because it no longer demands that reality conform to its own desires. It becomes receptive, spacious, and capable of wonder. 

Humility awakens the soul to the God who has already drawn near. And the purpose of this nearness is healing: “I have seen his ways, and will heal him” (Isaiah 57:18). The contrite are not healed because they have attained spiritual perfection. They are healed because they have ceased to hide their wounds from the Physician. Humility is the point at which the soul stops defending its sickness and consents to be healed.

This is the watchfulness to which Christ summons us. It is not the mastery of dates but the daily schooling of the heart in humility, mercy, repentance, and love, so that the features of Christ may become familiar to us even beneath the disguises of ordinary life. And whenever and however the Lord comes, He will not find us incapable of recognising Him.

The watchful heart is not a tense heart, perpetually afraid of being caught unprepared. It is a wounded but open heart, waiting for the One who comes not merely to inspect but to restore. It does not watch in terror, as though the Master’s return were a threat. It watches with longing because it has learned that the One who comes is the Physician, the Bridegroom, the rejected Brother bearing bread, and the Lord worthy of every drop of precious ointment.

The tragedy would not be that the Lord came at an hour we had failed to predict. It would be that He came in mercy, in suffering, in sacrament, in neighbour, in stranger, and in the secret visitations of grace, yet found us unable to recognise Him. The decisive question is whether we have loved Him deeply enough to know Him when He comes.

In Christ,
Rincy

ILLUMINED FREEDOM

Reflection on the holy Gospel reading for the fifth Sunday after the Feast of Dormition of the Theotokos

Old Testament reading: Leviticus 18: 1-5; Joshua 22: 1-6 and Ezekiel 34: 1- 6

Holy Gospel reading: St. Luke 11:33-41

The Grammar of Hidden Sanctity- Fiat Without Fanfare

Remembering Rev. Fr. George Philip, Mar Baselios Dayara Njaliakuzhy 

(d. 04 September 2022)

There is a peculiar difficulty in speaking about a truly humble man; the very virtues that make him worthy of remembrance are often those he took greatest care to conceal. Humility does not arrange its achievements for posterity or leave carefully polished accounts of its sacrifices. It passes quietly through the world, often recognised only when the life that bore it has withdrawn from sight.

The Apostle Paul, writing to a congregation altogether too enamoured of eloquence and distinction, delivered a verdict that every generation of the Church is obliged to relearn- “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty”-1 Corinthians 1:27.

It is a verdict our age receives uneasily, as we are accustomed to measure spiritual authority by credentials, publications, position, and visibility. Fr. George Philip possessed few of these instruments of recognition. Yet those who lived with him or were formed under his quiet discipline encountered a man whose spiritual authority seemed to arise from an altogether different source, not from accomplishment, but from surrender to the will of God.

The desert tradition of the Church produced, alongside its great theologians and teachers, an entire company of deliberately obscure men and women who cultivated a holiness partly expressed through the refusal to be noticed. At the furthest end of this tradition stand the Holy Fools, whose suspicion of spiritual reputation was so severe that they sometimes embraced misunderstanding to escape veneration. George Achen was no Holy Fool in that dramatic sense; he sought no scandal and cultivated no eccentricity for its own sake. Yet he shared something of the same theological grammar, the conviction that the self is an obstacle to be continually set aside rather than a possession to be endlessly promoted.

Early Life and Call to Priesthood

Fr. George Philip was born on 20 November 1952 into the Mannalumbhagom family of Puthuppally as the son of Adv. P. J. George and Mariamma George. Known affectionately to his family as Siby, he received the baptismal name Philip and was officially named P. George Philip. He grew up with his siblings, P. George Joseph, George P. Abraham, and Andamma George, in a household rooted in the agricultural life of the land.

 After completing his schooling and graduating from S. B. College, Changanassery, he travelled to Goa to study law, intending to follow his father’s profession. Before long, however, he realised that the legal profession was not the path appointed for him. Leaving his studies unfinished, young Philip made the decisive choice to offer his life to the service of God. He informed the then Metropolitan of the Kottayam Diocese, His Grace Paret Mathews Mar Ivanios, of his desire and subsequently joined the Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam.

It was only after entering the Seminary that Philip began serving within the Holy Altar. Following his seminary studies, he obtained master’s degrees in Malayalam, Sanskrit, and English. Yet scholarship never became for him a means of distinction. Learning was placed within the larger discipline of the spiritual life and subjected to the question that would govern nearly every aspect of his existence- What is the will of God?

Fr. George Philip served as associate vicar and vicar in several parishes of the Kottayam Diocese, including some that later became part of the Nilakkal Diocese. During this period, he also lived at Pampady Dayara, embracing a manner of life increasingly shaped by solitude, restraint, prayer, and the disciplines of monasticism.

He served as Vice Principal of B.M.M. School and as Head of its Malayalam Department. After many years of teaching, he took voluntary retirement and joined Mar Baselios Dayara, Njaliakuzhy. With the permission of his bishop, His Grace Geevarghese Mar Ivanios Metropolitan, he eventually withdrew from parish responsibilities to serve as chaplain of the Dayara and devote himself more fully to prayer, silence, and meditation.

A Pathway Around Idle Speech

During his years at the Dayara, students noticed a peculiar habit. If George Achen saw two or three of them gathered in conversation, he would sometimes turn aside and reach his room by another route. It was not aloofness, nor was it intended as a rebuke. When asked about the practice, he offered a simple and unsparing answer that when people stand together, the tongue speaks more than it should, and eventually this may lead to sin and disturb the spiritual life.

To modern ears, such reasoning may appear excessively austere. We inhabit a culture in which continuous expression is treated almost as an unquestionable good to remain relevant in society. Silence is easily mistaken for absence, weakness, or disapproval. George Achen understood that many of the soul’s gravest injuries begin in unguarded words. The tongue can wound another, feed vanity, spread suspicion, and cloud the mind that seeks God. He therefore guarded speech not because he despised company, but because he understood his own frailty.

A few extra steps to avoid idle conversation became a miniature expression of monastic anthropology. The body changed its course so that the heart might remain attentive.

The Will of God Before Every Other Good

The phrase most closely associated with George Achen’s spiritual teaching was the “will of God.” For Achen, this was the criterion by which every action, including apparently virtuous actions, had to be judged.

On one occasion, he advised an inmate not to run about attempting to do everything that came before him. The inmate explained that whenever he began one task, someone else would call him to another. He believed that responding to every request was an act of obedience. Did not the Lord command His disciples to go the second mile and to surrender even their cloak when it was demanded of them?

George Achen listened and gently corrected that one must look for the will of God in everything. Otherwise, even obedience, when separated from discernment, can lead to wrongdoing.

George Achen did not permit even obedience to take the place of discernment. For him, obedience was neither mechanical compliance with every demand nor an anxious attempt to satisfy every expectation. Even a seemingly good action could become spiritually disordered if it arose from pride, fear, distraction, or the desire to appear useful. The question was therefore not merely- “Is this action generous? Is it difficult? Does someone expect it of me?” The deeper question was- “Does this belong to God, or merely to my own restlessness?”

Prayer as Repentance and Intercession

When asked how one might pray continually, George Achen’s answer was simple, practical, and grounded in an honest knowledge of the human heart.

He taught that one should begin by praying for oneself. After some time, the mind becomes aware that it has been occupied chiefly with its own needs, and this awareness produces repentance. Repentance then moves the person to pray for others. Later, while interceding for others, one becomes conscious again of one’s own weakness and returns to prayer for oneself. Thus, prayer continues in a rhythm, moving between personal repentance and intercession for the world.

The apparent simplicity of this counsel conceals considerable spiritual wisdom. George Achen did not imagine that unceasing prayer required the elimination of human weakness. Weakness itself could become the point from which prayer can begin again; self-concern led to repentance, repentance opens the heart towards others, and intercession returned the soul to an awareness of its own dependence upon mercy. Prayer thus moved in a circle, but not a fruitless one. Each return went deeper.

“We should always pray for the will of God and for God’s mercy,” he taught. These two petitions belonged together. To seek the will of God without His mercy could become harsh striving. To seek mercy without surrender to His will could become spiritual self-indulgence.

A Bible Worn by Use

Near the place where George Achen stood to pray was a simple cane stool. Upon it he kept his prayer books and his Bible. The Bible was heavily worn, its pages bearing visible evidence of a long companionship with Scripture. There is an old saying that a good Christian’s Bible is often worn.

On Saturdays, after evening prayer, he would gather the students and ask them to read the relevant portions from the Old and New Testaments according to the lectionary. At times he questioned them about what had been read, taking particular interest in how the Old Testament and New Testament readings illuminated one another.

Communion Before Charity

George Achen taught that the Christian life flows from Holy Communion to good deeds, not the other way around. Through Holy Communion, the faithful receive the Holy Body and Blood of the Lord and are drawn into His life. From that union, we are called to serve others and act with the mind and character of Christ.

The movement is from altar to the world, from sacrament to service, and from communion to charity. Christian action proceeds from union with Christ. For this to happen, we must remain continually connected to Christ through the Eucharistic life of the Church.

It is this conviction which protects the service from becoming self-glorification. When good works are severed from communion with Christ, they can easily become an exercise in moral pride. The person may seek to appear godlike through the greatness of his deeds while remaining inwardly untouched by the humility of God.

Authority Without Ambition

Achen usually observed others in silence and rarely invoked authority merely because he possessed it. Yet his restraint was neither timidity nor indecision. When something needed to be said, he said it without hesitation, and his words carried weight precisely because they had not been multiplied carelessly.

The same freedom appeared during discussions concerning episcopal nominations. When one of the monks suggested that all suitable persons should be permitted to submit their names, George Achen agreed. Achen reasoned that if the Church has asked for deserving candidates, then all who are considered suitable should be offered to the Church with prayer, leaving the result to the will of God.

While discussions and speculation continued outside the Dayara, Achen remained calm and gentle, refusing to be drawn into the surrounding negotiations.

When a fellow monk asked whether he should submit his own nomination, George Achen advised him to do so and said that if it were God’s will, he might be chosen; if not, the disappointment itself might become a blessing by exposing and correcting any pride within his spiritual life. When the monk later considered withdrawing, George Achen discouraged him and asked him to leave the result to God. This monk and two others were subsequently raised to the episcopate.

We are accustomed to judging success and failure as opposites, one desirable and the other regrettable. George Achen saw them differently. Neither was ultimate, and neither possessed an independent meaning. Success could become spiritually perilous if it fostered pride, while failure could become a blessing if it humbled and purified the heart. Both, when surrendered to God, could serve as instruments of grace.

The Theology That Became a Life

While theological concepts are usually expressed in propositions, George Achen’s was expressed almost entirely in verbs; through yielding, in withholding speech, in tending soil and cattle, in reading the Scriptures with unwavering constancy, in asking, before every act, whether the act in question belonged to God or merely to himself. He returned to the same truths until they entered the movements of his body and the instincts of his mind.

The Church has always known that this is the more difficult theology to develop; not the theology that is written, but the theology that is lived, day after day, until the distinction between the person and his prayer can no longer easily be drawn.

For George Achen, monastics were “living martyrs.” They were called to die to the world each day so that they might live more completely with God. This martyrdom was not ordinarily enacted in a single heroic moment. It took place through inconspicuous renunciations, a word left unspoken or a preference surrendered. His life was shaped by precisely this hidden martyrdom.

George Achen fell asleep in the quiet of his own cell, on 04^th September 2022, days before the Church’s commemoration of the Nativity of the Theotokos. The Theotokos is venerated by the Church for the totality of her yielding; a will so thoroughly surrendered that it became the very ground upon which the Incarnation could occur. “Let it be to me according to your word” (St. Luke 1:38). The surrender expressed by the Theotokos in that single sentence, a fiat without fanfare, had been the long labour of George Achen’s life.

Achen’s mortal remains were taken to his mother parish, St. George Orthodox Church, Puthuppally, and to his family home, where the appointed services were conducted and then brought back to Mar Baselios Dayara. On Monday, 05^th September 2022, the funeral was conducted near the chapel under the leadership of His Holiness Baselios Marthoma Mathews III Catholicos and Malankara Metropolitan, together with the assembled metropolitans and priests. He was laid to rest near the resting place of His Grace Geevarghese Mar Ivanios Metropolitan (of blessed memory).

In an age fascinated by visibility, George Achen’s witness recalls the Christian conviction that the holiest lives are often hidden from the world and known fully only to God. This was the grammar of his hidden sanctity. Grammar does not ordinarily draw attention to itself; it stands beneath speech, quietly giving order and intelligibility to every sentence. In much the same way, the hidden disciplines of Achen’s life stood beneath his words and actions. Silence, repentance, Scripture, Eucharist, obedience, and discernment were not isolated virtues, but parts of an underlying spiritual order by which his whole life became intelligible.

Only after his departure did those who had lived around him begin to understand the place he had quietly occupied among them. Many remembered that he had not spoken to them often. Yet they also remembered that he had been present, someone among them whose silence was not emptiness but prayer.

May his memory be eternal and may the humility he practised so unassumingly continue to instruct those of us who remain, still labouring, as he once did, to discern in each small matter what is truly and simply the will of God.

By the prayers and intercessions of our father among the saints, Fr. George Philip, may the Lord have mercy upon us and help us.

In Christ,
Rincy

(Ref: Mounamudridam, edited by Fr. Yohannan A., Mashikkoottu, 2023)

 

Remembering Very Rev. Cyril Rambachan (d. 02 Sep 2008)

 

On September 2, the Malankara Orthodox Church commemorates the memory of Very Rev. Cyril Rambachan (1919-2008), a monk and a teacher. A member of Bethelehem Monastery, Chengamanad, which was established as an extension of St. George Orthodox Monastery, Othera, Rambachan lived during a period when many faithful were increasingly exposed to modern movements that promoted a "Bible-only" understanding of Christianity. In response, he would often remind people- "It is the Church that teaches; the Holy Bible validates the instructions of the Church."

This conviction shaped his entire ministry. To those considering leaving the Orthodox Church, he would gently pose two thought-provoking questions: 

(1)"Do you think being in the Orthodox Church will prove to be a barrier to the salvation of your soul?" 

(2)"If you have a difference of opinion within your family, do you bid farewell to your home forever and move into a neighbouring house?"

Early Life

Cyril Rambachan was born on November 10, 1919, to Shri Abraham Panickar and Smt. Aleyamma Panickar of the Mukalel family in Kundara, Kerala. Before embracing monastic life, he was known as M. A. Varghese Panickar.

Rambachan once recounted an interesting tradition concerning the title "Panickar." According to local history, when the Raja of Kottarakkara visited the king of Kayamkulam, he was impressed by a dramatic performance staged in his honor. Upon learning that the performers were also skilled martial artists and loyal subjects, he requested that some of them be settled in his kingdom. The request was granted, and these martial warriors were established in Kundara with the title "Panickar." A church was later built for the community, which is today known as St. Thomas Orthodox Church, Kundara.

After completing the ninth standard, Varghese Panickar worked briefly as a teacher at St. Kuriakose L.P. School before completing his S.S.L.C. education at M.G.D. School. During the years of the Second World War, he moved to Madras and served the British Indian Army as a civilian Quartermaster Clerk, overseeing supplies and the management of twenty-five military trucks.

Following the war, he returned to Kerala and served as a teacher at Kundara M.G.D. High School from 1947 to 1950. He later worked as a Library Inspector for the taluks of Kollam, Karunagappally, and Karthikappally. Yet despite having a stable career, he felt a deeper calling.

A Life Offered to God

In 1953, Varghese Panickar resigned from government service and joined St. George Orthodox Monastery, Othera. The monastery was then under the leadership of Rev. Fr. E. Mathews, who would later become His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews II Catholicos. The monastery was home to eighteen inmates, and in this community the future Rambachan began his formal spiritual formation.

From 1953 to 1958, he studied at the Old Seminary in Kottayam. Among his classmates was the future Mathews Mar Epiphanios Metropolitan. On March 25, 1958, Dn. Varghese was ordained to the priesthood.

Over the next five decades, Fr. Geevarghese Panickar faithfully served numerous parishes in India and abroad, including Kudassanad, Kozhikode Cathedral, Mavelikara Puthiyacavu, Kollam Cathedral, Vellore, Singapore, and Malaysia. Wherever he served, he became known for his commitment to prayer, discipline, and Orthodox teaching.

In 1987, His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews I Catholicos ordained Geevarghese Achen to the rank of Rambachan, formally embracing the fullness of monastic life.

Rambachan’s prayer book was a constant companion. Whether traveling or at home, he was careful to maintain the discipline of prayer. If the appointed hour of prayer arrived while he was walking, he would quietly seek a secluded place, often beneath the shade of a tree, and continue his prayers.

Kundara Seminary, established by His Holiness Baselios Geevarghese II Catholicos to support the ministries of the southern dioceses, became closely associated with Cyril Rambachan's life and ministry.

From 1982 until his repose in 2008, he served as its Manager for twenty-six years. During this time, he worked tirelessly for the spiritual growth of the institution and was instrumental in establishing within the seminary the holy relics of St. George, Mar Kauma, St. Kuriakose, and St. Yulithi. Every Friday, he organized special prayers for the students of M.G.D. School and personally counseled them in matters of faith.

When someone once asked whether he felt lonely living at the seminary, Rambachan simply pointed to the portraits of departed holy fathers hanging in its hall and replied that he enjoyed their company. With saints as companions, he saw no reason to fear solitude.

One concern that weighed heavily upon his heart was the declining number of young people embracing monastic life. He viewed this not merely as an organizational challenge but as a spiritual loss for the Church. Indeed, his own love for the monastic vocation was so profound that when he learned his name had been proposed for episcopal consideration, he personally approached His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews I Catholicos and requested that his name be withdrawn, preferring the quiet path of monastic service.

Inspired by the call of his spiritual father, His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews II Catholicos, to live as a pilgrim journeying toward heaven, Rambachan undertook many pilgrimages beginning in 1978. These journeys took him to lands intimately connected with biblical history, including Holy Land, Jordan, Greece, and Egypt. His travels were not undertaken merely for personal devotion. He studied ancient Christian sites deeply, particularly the monasteries of Egypt, and shared his findings through books and writings.

After a lifetime of service, prayer, teaching, and sacrifice, Very Rev. Cyril Rambachan departed this earthly life on September 2, 2008. He was laid to rest at Chengamanad Bethlehem Monastery, the community he loved and served.

His life stands as a quiet reminder that the most enduring service to the Church is often offered not through prominence, but through steadfast faithfulness.

In one of his interviews, he left a simple message to the faithful-"Participate without fail in the liturgical life and rituals of the Malankara Orthodox Church. Love your Church. Respect the holy fathers. See to it that you always maintain simplicity and purity in your life."

May those words remain engraved upon our hearts.

May the memory of Very Rev. Cyril Rambachan be eternal.

In Christ,

Rincy

Reference: (Translated from Malayalam) Bethlehemile Theerthadakan, ed. Fr. K. Geevarghese, Chengamanad: B.A. Publications, 2009.