Pope John Paul II has created two new Eastern-rite dioceses in southern India

Pope John Paul II has created two new Eastern-rite dioceses in southern India to help the Catholic Church in India fulfill its evangelizing mission.

On Jan. 15, Pope John Paul created the Syro-Malabar diocese of Idukki and Syro-Malankara diocese of Moovattupuzha. The new jurisdictions in Kerala state were carved out of Kothamangalam and Tiruvalla dioceses respectively. On the same day, the pope appointed Kothamangalam diocese´s Father Mathew Anikuzhikattil, 61, as bishop of Idukki, and 44-year-old Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Mar Koorilos of Tiruvalla as bishop of Moovattupuzha.

Idukki is about 120 kilometers southeast of Kochi, Kerala´s commercial capital, which is some 2,595 kilometers south of New Delhi. Moovattupuzha is 40 kilometers east of Kochi.

Idukki has become the 25th diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church in India, while Moovattupuzha is the fifth Syro-Malankara diocese. Including those two new sees, the Catholic Church in India now has 148 dioceses.

Archbishop Cyril Mar Baselios of Trivandrum, president of the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India (CBCI) and head of the Syro-Malankara Church, told that the creation of the new dioceses “will bring the people closer to the Church in Kerala.”

At a ceremony announcing the creation of Moovattupuzha diocese, Archbishop Baselios thanked the pope for “gifting” a new diocese to the Malankara Church. He explained that “there was indeed an urgent need” for a new diocese because Tiruvalla diocese was so “spread out” across central Kerala.

Nearly half of some 45,000 Malankara-rite people in Tiruvalla diocese will belong to 62 parishes in the new diocese, the CBCI president said after the ceremony in Tiruvalla, some 2,730 kilometers south of New Delhi.

Bishop-designate Mar Koorilos became a priest in 1985 and auxiliary bishop in 1997. Details on the installation of the new prelates are yet to be announced.