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A centenary and a golden jubilee
S. MUTHIAH
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A tribute will be paid tomorrow to the late Rt. Rev. David Chellappa, the first Indian Bishop of the Diocese of Madras, to mark his 100th birth anniversary
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TOMORROW, A service in the morning and a meeting in the evening will honour the 100th birthday of the late Rt. Rev. David Chellappa, who was the first Indian Bishop of the Diocese of Madras. He had been a much-beloved Principal of St. Paul's High School, Vepery, for nearly 20 years at the time he was consecrated Bishop on January 25, 1955, appropriately St. Paul's Day. During his time, the diocese encompassed Madras City, `Chinglepet', the North and South Arcot Districts and Chittoor District. He died in harness in August 1964 and has been honoured with a memorial tablet in St. George's Cathedral.
Among the Rev. Chellappa's contributions as Bishop was the amendment of the constitution of St. George's Cathedral in 1963-64, enabling the election of a Pastorate Committee to handle the day-to-day administration of the Cathedral while leaving administration of its immovable property in the hands of the Trustees who had till then, from the first Trustees in 1816, administered the church. It was also Rev. Chellappa who persuaded the Trustees to build the present Bishop's House in the Cathedral premises soon after he was installed. Till then, most of the British Bishops had lived off-campus. He was also instrumental in forging ties with the Roman Catholic Church to work together for the Christian community, a partnership many of his flock were quite critical of. He was seen on many a public platform with two he considered close friends, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Matthias of Mylapore and Bishop Carvalho. When Governor A. J. John (1956-58) died, Bishop Chellappa participated in the service at the San Thome Cathedral and once again stirred a congregation with his eloquence.
Born the son of Judge Daniel and Elizabeth Chellappa, David Chellappa disappointed his father by not following him in the legal profession. He, after Madras Christian College, felt himself committed to the Church and went to England, to Canterbury, in 1929 to study at St. Augustine's College. On his return, he joined J. C. Winslow's Christian Seva Sangh Ashram in Poona in 1932 and was ordained in 1933.
He then went back to England to qualify as a teacher with a degree from Durham University. He took charge of St. Paul's School in 1938 and built it up to rival the best schools in the city.
Despite his multifarious duties, the scholar in Rev. Chellappa never died and in 1954 he submitted a thesis on the development of the Church of South India to Durham and received his Master's degree. The next year, he was given an honorary Doctorate of Divinity in the U.S. when he was invited to deliver the Convocation Address at a college run by the Reformed Church (Lutheran) of America.
His wife Rachel, a scholar herself, wrote much on church matters and her last work, a 760-page Daily Devotion in Tamil, was published posthumously recently.
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