The Catholic Church has established a new diocese headquartered at Faridabad, comprising areas in and around Delhi for the faithful of the Syro-Malabar Church. Kuriakose Bharanikulangara will be the first bishop of the diocese, which will have the Church of Christ the King as its cathedral.
The announcement was made here on Tuesday by head of the Syro-Malabar Church Cardinal George Alencherry, Major Archbishop. A simultaneous announcement was made in the Vatican.
The new diocese comprises the national capital territory, the States of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir, and the districts of Gautam Budha Nagar and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.
The new diocese will be spread over 9.5 lakh sq km and there are more than a lakh Syro-Malabar Catholics, 44 priests, and 200 religious women in the areas under its administration.
The proper territory of the Syro-Malabar Church includes only the dioceses in Kerala and some areas of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Outside the proper territory, the Syro-Malabar Church has 10 dioceses in India, including the one in Kalyan, which functions with multiple jurisdictions in the territory of the Latin dioceses of the region.
Monsignor Bharanikulangara hails from the Karippassery parish of the Syro-Malabar Archdiocese of Angamaly-Ernakulam and has worked mainly with the Vatican diplomatic services in various countries, including Germany.
Cardinal Alencherry, who made the announcement in the presence of a large gathering of priests and the religious, thanked the Catholic Church hierarchy in India for the new development. He also thanked the priests and the religious who have been working in the geographical area of the new diocese for their dedicated services. He recalled specially the services of Sebastian Vadakkumpadan and Jose Edassery.
