St Mary's Church
In 1880 the Malankara Church acquired 18 acres (73,000 m2) of land for construction of the church and a cornerstone was laid in 1889. The church began as a small building thatched with coconut leaves which was slowly built out in the early 1900s. Paulose Mar Athanasius built the current St Mary's Church in the early 1930s. The Syriac Orthodox Church canonized him as a saint at Damascus in August 2004. Mar Athanasius both gave away and sold at very low cost much of his inherited land so that Syrian Christians settling in the area could live near the church. The western side of the building was enlarged in 1964. Inside are the tombs of three 19th and 20th century Syrian Christian metropolitan bishops, Kadavil Paulose Mar Athanasius (d 1907), Saint Paulose Mar Athanasius (d 1953) and Mor Gregorios Geevarghese Vayaliparambil (d 1966).
On the 25th and 26 January each year thousands of pilgrims gather at St Mary's Church to take part in dukrono celebrations for its builder, Saint Paulose Mar Athanasius, who has been called "one of the most revered metropolitans" of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church "after Gheevarghese Mar Gregorios of Parumala."
Read more about this topic: Thrikkunnathu Seminary
Famous quotes containing the words mary and/or church:
“A beautiful woman is born Queen of men and women both, as Mary Stuart was born Queen of Scots, whether men or women.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“I condemn Christianity. I raise against the Christian church the most terrible accusation that any accuser has ever uttered. It is to me the ultimate conceivable corruption. It has possessed the will to the final corruption that is even possible. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity: it has turned every value into a disvalue, every truth into a falsehood, every integrity into a vileness of the soul.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)