Late Archbishop Mar Ivanios will be declared “Servant of God” (Daivadasan)

The Father of the Re-union movement and the First Archbishop of the Malankara Catholic Church, Late Archbishop Mar Ivanios will be declared “Servant of God” (Daivadasan). This comes as a first step to declaring the Late Archbishop a Saint.

The declaration will be made on the 14th of July, 2007 by His Excellency Major Archbishop Baselios Mar Cleemis at the Pattom Cathedral, Trivandrum. Mar Ivanios’ 54th Death Anniversary is on July 15.

Steps to Sainthood.

After attaining the status of the “Servant of God”, there are three more steps to finally attain Sainthood.

1) A postulator (a church official who coordinates the process and serves as an advocate) must demonstrate the Mar Ivanios lived by heroic Christian virtues. Documents and testimony are collected and presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. If approved by that panel and the pope, the Late Archbishop Mar Ivanios will earn the title ”Venerable.”

2) Faithful can now pray to Late Archbishop Mar Ivanios, asking for help in delivering messages to God. Answered prayers can be attributed to Mar Ivanios’ advocacy, or intercession. If the postulator  (a church official who coordinates the process and serves as an advocate) can prove that Mar Ivanios’s intercession helped a living person receive a miracle from God, the Pope can declare the late Archbishop, ”Blessed.”

3) After a second miracle is attributed to Mar Ivanios’ intercession, the Pope can declare him to be a saint, with the final step called “Canonization”.

Due to the declaration of Mar Ivanios as the “Servant of God”, special prayers and masses will be conducted everyday, till the 14th of July at St. Mary’s Cahtedral, Pattom where he was laid to rest.