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.