Aloysius Pazheparambil

His Beatitude Mar Aloysius Pazheparambil.
Metropolitan of Ernakulam-Angamaly
Diocese	Ernakulam-Angamaly
Installed	11 August 1896
Term ended	1919
Predecessor	none
Successor	Mar Augustine Kandathil
Orders
Ordination	4 December 1870.
Personal details
Born	Aloysius 25 March 1847 Pulinkunnoo
Died	9 December 1919 (1919-12-10) (aged 72) Ernakulam
Nationality	Indian.

Mar Aloysius (Louis) Pazheparambil (Pulinkunnoo, 25 March 1847 – Ernakulam, 9 December 1919) was the Vicar Apostolic of Ernakulam in the Syro-Malabar Church. Originally a monk of the Syrian Carmelites, he was expelled along with nine others in 1875 from the religious order by the local bishop for writing to the Pope asking for an Indian bishop to rule his church. Later in 1896 he became one of three Indian bishops appointed to rule over the three Vicariates Apostolic newly created in his church.

Early life and ordination

Aloysius Pazheparambil was born in Pulinkunnoo at Alleppey. In this important parish of the Catholic Thomas Christians founded the Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara, 1861, the fifth of his monastic order of men " Carmelites of Mary Immaculate ", and entered into the Pazheparambil on 4 December 1870 received the priestly ordination.

At that time were under the local Catholic Thomas Christians, together with the Latin Catholics, nor the Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly . There were constant quarrels, because these Latin bishops little understanding of the liturgy of the Thomas Christians is foreign to them and mustered a more or less strong approximation aspired to the Latin rite. As so often in the past it was in 1874 by one of the Syro-Catholic Patriarchate of Babylon to India named bishop sent Mellus Elias, who worked without permission of Rome among the Thomas Christians, to a great confusion. Aloysius Pazheparambils Order of the "Carmelites of Mary Immaculate" was one of the most loyal defenders of the Church's unity and fought the bishop acting illegally Mellus sustainable. Although Mellus finally relented, drifted a part of his followers in a schism and split off from the Catholic Church. Against this background and to avoid such harmful to future developments, a group of 10 monks called the "Carmelites of Mary Immaculate" the establishment of their own rite Catholic bishops, to rule over them. Father Aloysius Pazheparambil was the head and spokesman of this group and was therefore in 1875, along with everyone else, by Leonardo Mellano, the Apostolic Vicar of Verapoly, expelled from the Order.

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

Bishop and Vicar Apostolic

The three new Catholic Apostolic Vicars of. Thomas Christians in India, 1896. From left: Aloysius Pazheparambil, Mathew Makil, John Menachery

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

His epitaph, written by his episcopal successor Mar Augustine Kandathil, reads:

`A Prelate specially devoted to the Blessed Virgin, simple in ways, frugal in habits, ever devoted to the interests of his Rite and Nation, steadfast of purpose, yet tactful in action, a scholar, a linguist, a historian, and a diplomat, he was a great Indian.'

Further reading

• I. C. Chacko, Illiparambil: Mar Louis Pazheparambil: Jeevithavum Kaalavum, Trivandrum, 1937.