India GOSt Kuriakose Elias Chavara: the priest who wanted a school by every church
കുര്യാക്കോസ് ഏലിയാസ് ചാവറ
Syro-Malabar priest, co-founder of Kerala's first native congregations, who pushed for a school beside every church; canonised 2014.
Kuriakose Elias Chavara was a priest of Kerala's Syro-Malabar Church, the Catholic church of the Saint Thomas Christians, who co-founded its first religious congregation for men, opened schools to children of every caste and set up one of Kerala's first printing presses. Canonised in 2014, he is the first Catholic man of Indian origin to be declared a saint.
Story
Ordained in 1829, he was one of the founders of the first Indian congregation of the Syrian Church at Mannanam, started a Sanskrit school open to every caste and a printing press, and pressed for a school beside every church, the pallikkoodam that Kerala still counts as his legacy. His letter to families, the Chavarul, is still read in Syro-Malabar homes. Pope Francis canonised him with Sister Euphrasia in 2014.
“A good Christian family is the image of heaven.”
Chavarul, 1868
Life
Chavara was born on 10 February 1805 at Kainakary, in the backwaters of Kuttanad near Alappuzha, and ordained priest on 29 November 1829. Two years later, in 1831, he and two older priests, Palackal Thoma Malpan and Porukara Thoma Kathanar, founded a community at Mannanam near Kottayam. It became the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI), the first indigenous religious congregation for men in the Syro-Malabar Church, and Chavara led it as Prior General from 1856 until his death.
In 1861 he was made Vicar General of the Syriac-rite Catholics, to counter the influence of the bishop Mar Thomas Rochos among the Saint Thomas Christians. In 1866 he supported the founding of the first Carmelite convent for women at Koonammavu. The Congregation of the Mother of Carmel (CMC) honours him as its founder, while the Church officially recognises Mother Eliswa Vakayil as foundress of that first community, whose line the Teresian Carmelites (CTC) continue. He died at Koonammavu on 3 January 1871.
Schools, a press and plays
In 1846 Chavara opened a Sanskrit school at Mannanam that admitted children of lower castes, a radical step in nineteenth-century Kerala, and the same year started St Joseph's Press there, Kerala's third printing press and the first set up by a Malayali without foreign help. The newspaper Nasrani Deepika grew out of it and is still published. He also wrote poetry, liturgical texts and, between 1856 and 1858, ten eclogues, short pastoral dramas that give him a place in the early history of Malayalam theatre.
Sainthood and where he is remembered
John Paul II beatified him at Kottayam on 8 February 1986, and Pope Francis canonised him in Rome on 23 November 2014, together with Sister Euphrasia Eluvathingal of Kerala. The Syro-Malabar Church keeps his feast on 3 January, the day of his death; the Latin calendar has it on 18 February.
Two places claim him. He was buried at St Philomena's Forane Church in Koonammavu, near Kochi, and Mannanam, where the CMI began, has long been a pilgrimage centre in his name; accounts of a later transfer of his remains to Mannanam are not officially confirmed. Kerala has other saints of the same church, among them St Alphonsa.
❓ FAQ
Who is St Kuriakose Elias Chavara?
A 19th-century Syro-Malabar Catholic priest from Kerala, co-founder of the CMI congregation, educator and printer, canonised in 2014.
Which congregation did he found?
The Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI), begun at Mannanam in 1831 with two fellow priests. He also supported the first Carmelite convent for women (1866), from which the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel (CMC) dates its origin; the Church officially names Mother Eliswa Vakayil as that community's foundress.
When is his feast day?
3 January in the Syro-Malabar Church; 18 February in the Latin calendar.
What is the Chavarul?
His letter of advice to the Christian families of his home parish, Kainakary, written in 1868 and still read in Syro-Malabar homes; the line quoted above comes from it.