Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Renovated church opened

— Photo: G. Moorthy.

NEW LOOK: Renovated Altar at the Rosary Church in Madurai.

MADURAI: Holy Rosary Church celebrated its 40th anniversary of Our Lady Perpetual Succour along with the inauguration of the renovated Church building and the Grotto here on Sunday. Rev Fr Peter Fernando Arch Bishop inaugurated the renovated building and grotto.

Located in the busy Town Hall road the Church has a glorious history, as it was the first Roman Catholic Church to be built in Madurai. Jesuits who established Madura Mission contributed to the enrichment of the local languages and philology.

Robert De Nobili (1577-1656) a Jesuit from Tuscan became Reverend Father in the year 1627; hailed as the Thathuva Bodhagar he indigenised Christianity. Constantine Joseph Beschi (1680-1747), a native of Castiglione in Italy was honoured with the name Veeramamunivar, “ great among ascetics,” by fellow Tamil scholars for his demonstrated mastery over the language used to stay in the Church and deliver discourses. Beschi is best known for his pioneering work in grammar and lexicography, but his crowning achievement was the narration of the life of St. Joseph in Tamil in his poem Thempavani.

Beschi who has a practice of carving statues of Mother Mary and worshipping them in the places wherever he is on an extended stay has also carved a statue, which is kept inside the Rosary Church. Similar Mother Mary statues carved by Beschi are there in Elakurichi in Thanjavur, Kamanayakkanpatti in Tirunelveli and Konarkuppam in Puducherry.

Rosary Church had undergone various architectural transitions during different phases and a new building came up in the year 1966. The recent renovation has been done in a combination of Roman architecture with native style. The Altar of the Church has been designed depicting 12 symbols that include fish, and Alpha, Omega and Zigma in Tamil letters, which represent the scripture from Revelations, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” and symbols illustrating messages of St Matthew St Mark St. Luke and St John and a cross with thorns depicting suffering and a cross with a shawl depicting resurrection.

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