Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Photo: Mahesh Harilal

standing tall The St Francis Church in Fort Kochi

It’s amazing how much of local and national history a church can reflect, especially one that has served the community for 505 years.

“Every church maintains a meticulous record of the parish families,” says Fr. Stanley Mathirappilli, Director, Ashirbhavan, Ernakulam, a long-time resident of those parts.

“This is possible because all the major events — baptisms, weddings, funerals — happen in the church.” The SFC still has a piece of this link to the past — the ‘Doop Book’, a baptism and marriage register from 1751–1804, maintained for 40 years by one Predikant Cornelies. Repaired and rebound in its original style, it is preserved in the vestry. Visitors get to see a photocopy.

Fort Kochi (formerly Cochin) is the oldest European settlement in India. And, SFC is the oldest European church. Five years after Vasco da Gama landed in Calicut, one Alphonso Albuquerque wangled permission from the Rajah of Cochin to build a fort in Kochi. The fort had walls of coconut trunks held with iron bands, and the Portuguese sailor-traders built a church dedicated to St. Bartholomew in the middle.

Within three years, Dom Almeyda, the Viceroy, had the Rajah’s nod to re-build it with mortar and stone. It was opened in 1516 in the name of St. Antony. Vasco da Gama returned to Cochin in 1524, died on Christmas eve and was buried in this church. The adventurer’s body lay there for 14 years till his remains were shipped to Portugal. The spot is marked in the church.

The records aren’t clear when this little place of worship came under the Order of St. Francis. When the Dutch arrived in 1663, they ordered Catholic priests to leave and demolished all the convents and churches. The CSF miraculously survived.

The Dutch converted it into their Government church, replacing the stone altar and the gilded screens with their own communion table and rostrum furniture.

They consecrated the Dutch Cemetery, one of the oldest in India, in 1724. Today, Europeans walk among the tombstones looking for authentic information about their sea-faring forefathers.

If you know how to read old Portuguese, Dutch and English, you are in for a fascinating treat. Embedded on the church walls are elaborate gravestones shifted from the graves when the church went through one more renovation in 1886. The tablet over the West door reads that it was “repaired by the government of Madras in 1887, being the fiftieth year of Queen Victoria…”

The British captured Cochin in 1795 and the church was passed on to the Ecclesiastical Department of the Government of India. It fell into bad days. One Rev. Thomas Morton, discovered the dilapidated church while passing through the area and ordered its restoration. Eventually, the CSI took over its management in 1947. But its name was retained.

Even if you’re under its roof only to escape a sudden downpour, you can’t miss the church’s wow factor.

The cenotaph in the middle of the lawn was erected in 1920 in memory of Cochiners who fell fighting WW I. Turn in and you’ll see long pankhas, fine crimpled cloth hanging from wooden beams. The British had a native sitting outside to pull at it and keep the sahibs and memsahibs inside comfortable.

The lovely, carved wood of the pulpit, confessional, baptism platform, book rests and the offering stand are proof of this period of opulence. The church was declared a protected monument in 1923.

“You see the ornamental chain on the low fence?” points out Mathews, whose family lived here. “That’s cast iron. My grandfather made the mould for it. I found a link on his grave. He also kept the church clock ticking till he died in 1926.” The phrase, “historic church”, takes on a different meaning here!

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail