Cochin

Cochin is part of mainland east India not far north of the island of Goa. Portuguese Augustinians began serving in Cochin in the year 1597.    

The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope of South Africa in 1498. He then landed at Calicut (presently Kozikode, India), thereby discovering the route to India by ship. From 1500 onwards, the Portuguese established their power first in Cranganore, then in Cochin and Goa. With these traders and commercial opportunists there also successively came Franciscan, Dominican, Augustinian, and Jesuit missionaries. The first missionaries to India were eight Franciscan friars, who set sail from Lisbon on the fleet of Pedro Alvarez Cabral on 9th March 1500. Eight months later three of them were slain at Calicut (near the present Madras, India) in the massacre of 16th November 1500. The survivors arrived at Cochin on or about the 26th November and settled there.                      

In 1541 the Jesuits arrived, and in 1551 the Dominicans followed. In 1557 Cochin was made a diocese, so extensive that it included Ceylon (which today is called Sri Lanka). The Diocese of Cochin was suffragan to the Archdiocese of Goa. On 29 January 1577 Pope Gregory XIII had appointed Mattheus de Medina O.S.A. as the fourth Bishop of Cochin, and he arrived in Goa on 9th October 1579. He served as Bishop of Cochin until 1588, when he was appointed Archbishop of Goa. In 1579 the Augustinians reached Cochin in 1579 and the first Augustinian priory there was erected in 1579 at Kalvetty, Mattancherry. It was Dom Mathias de Medina, the fourth Bishop of Cochin who invited them. He requested Antonio de Peik Savo O.S.A. to begin an Augustinian community in Cochin. This happened in the following year, when Miguel dos Ann Jose O.S.A., Markose de Garcia O.S.A., together with some other priests, were sent there. A chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe was immediately entrusted to them. Later on a monastery and a larger church dedicated to Our Lady of Purification were built there.

In 1663 Dutch Calvinists captured Cochin and destroyed all Catholic churches except two. These two exceptions were the cathedral, which they used as an armoury, and the Church of Saint Anthony, which they took over for Protestant worship. For this reason the latter building is sometimes still called the "Dutch Church". Later when back in Catholic hands, the Dutch Church was renamed the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, and is the oldest Catholic church in use in all of India. In 1795 Cochin was taken from the Dutch by the British. They then demolished the former cathedral that the Dutch had used as an armoury.                      

Five Augustinians were in charge of the Diocese of Cochin during its long history:

4. Dom Matheus De Medina O.S.A. 1579-1588
6. Dom Sebastianos A Santa Pedro O.S.A. 1615-1624
7. Dom Luiz De Britto A Menezes O.S.A. 1628-1629
14. Dom Antonio Da Santo Dionysio O.S.A. 1676-1685
15. Dom Pedro Da Silva O.S.A. 1688-1691

The Rt Rev. Dr John Thattumkal, appointed in the year 2000, became the thirty-fourth Bishop of Cochin.

(Continued on the next page.)

Links 

Location of Cochin (Kerala) within India. Kerala is coloured in yellow on the southern tip of India.
http://mapsofindia.com/maps/kerala/keralalocation.htm   

District map of Kerala.
http://mapsofindia.com/maps/kerala/kerala-district.htm   

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