St Kuriakose Elias Chavara

Born at Kainakary in the backwaters of Alappuzha in 1805, Kuriakose Elias Chavara was ordained in 1829. Three years later he joined two other priests in founding a religious house at Mannanam, which became the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, the first indigenous congregation for men in the Indian Church.

His influence on ordinary Kerala life came through institutions. He established a Sanskrit school open to students regardless of caste at a time when that was contested, started a printing press at Mannanam in 1846 that produced catechisms and the first Malayalam periodicals of the Church, and founded a seminary to train local clergy.

In 1866, with Fr Leopold Beccaro, he founded the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel, the first religious congregation for women in Kerala, so that girls could be taught by sisters in their own language and region.

His best known act of policy was the instruction that a school should stand beside every church. Parishes that complied were supported, those that did not were pressed. The result shaped literacy in central Kerala for generations, and is the reason his name is invoked in Kerala education debates to this day.

He died at Koonammavu on 3 January 1871. He was beatified alongside Sr Alphonsa at Kottayam in 1986 and canonised by Pope Francis on 23 November 2014.