The Bishop of Tinnevelly was the Ordinary of the Anglican Church in Tinnevelly, Tamil Nadu, India, from its inception in 1896 until the foundation of the Church in India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon in 1927; and after that head of one of its Dioceses.
In October 1896, Tinnevelly was separated from the Diocese of Madras and Rev. Samuel Morley was ordained as the first Bishop of the newly formed diocese. [1] [2]
Under the British, the area was known as Tinnevelly; since independence, the Tamil spelling of Tirunelveli is normally used. [3]
Robert Caldwell was a missionary for London Missionary Society. He arrived in British India at age 24, and studied the local language to spread the word of the Bible in a vernacular language, studies that led him to author a text on comparative grammar of the South Indian languages. In his book, Caldwell proposed that there are Dravidian words in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the archaic Greek language, and the places named by Ptolemy.
Holy Trinity Cathedral is the cathedral church of Tirunelveli Diocese under Church of South India.
The Church of the Province of Myanmar in Asia is a member church of the Anglican Communion. The province comprises the entire country of Myanmar. The current archbishop of Myanmar and bishop of Yangon is Stephen Than Myint Oo.
Stephen Charles Neill (1900–1984) was a British Anglican bishop, missionary and scholar. He was proficient in a number of languages, including Ancient Greek, Latin and Tamil. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and was a fellow there before going as a missionary in Tamil Nadu in British India. He became bishop of Tirunelveli in 1939. He believed in unification of all churches in South India and communion beyond denominations. He wrote several books on theology and church history.
The Rt Rev Samuel Morley was Bishop of Tinnevelly at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Coimbatore Diocese is one of the 24 dioceses of the Anglican Church of South India (CSI).
Charles Theophilus Ewald Rhenius was a German born missionary of the Church Mission Society (CMS). He was the first CMS missionary to arrive at India. For his missionary work in the Tirunelveli district he came to be known as the "Apostle of Tirunelveli". He was involved in the attempt to revise the Fabricius version of the Tamil Bible and also published a Tamil grammar book. Rhenius’ split from the Anglican Church in 1830 and started his own congregation. Rhenius' work was recognized in 1980 by the Reverend Daniel Abraham, the then Church of South India (CSI) bishop of Tirunelveli diocese. Rhenius's work was given official recognition by the Anglican Communion during the Tirunelveli diocese bicentenary celebration in 1980, in which, all the bishops, including Anglican bishop Stephen Neill and all the presbyters took an oath in front of the tomb of Rev Rhenius to follow the path of the resting soul, regard to evangelism.
Vedha Muthu Mukandar, , was the first Protestant Christian in the Megnanapuram Circle. He was a Hindu who converted to Christianity through the influence of missionary, the Rev. C. T. E. Rhenius. Vedha Muthu is buried at St Stephen's Church, Jebagnanapuram, Solaikudiyiruppu.
Bishop T. B. D. Prakasa Rao was the fourth CSI-Bishop - in - Krishna-Godavari of the Protestant Church of South India who occupied the Cathedra placed at CSI-St. Paul's Cathedral, Vijayawada. The Bishopric of Prakasa Rao lasted for two decades from 1981 through 2001, one of the longest in the history of the Church of South India Society. Prakasa Rao led the bishopric of Krishna-Godavari that comprised the Christian missions established by the London Missionary Society (LMS) and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) which merged its South India Christian missions in India into the Church of South India Society which was inaugurated in 1947 at the CSI-St. George's Cathedral, Madras.
Christianity in the state of Tamil Nadu, India is the second largest religion in the state. According to tradition, St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, landed in Malabar Coast in AD 52. In the colonial age many Portuguese, Dutch, British and Italian Christians came to Tamil Nadu. Priests accompanied them not only to minister the colonisers but also to spread the Christian faith among the non-Christians in Tamil Nadu. Currently, Christians are a minority community comprising 6% of the total population. Christians are mainly concentrated in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu - Kanyakumari, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli.
Bishop Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah was an Indian evangelist and the first Indian bishop in the churches of the Anglican Communion, serving as the first bishop of the diocese of Dornakal. A pioneer of Christian ecumenism in India, Azariah had a complex relationship with Mahatma Gandhi, who at least once called him postcolonial Indians' "Enemy Number One."
The Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) was the autonomous ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in British India.
The Diocese of Tirunelveli is one among the 24 dioceses of the Church of South India (CSI). It is based at Tirunelveli, in the state of Tamil Nadu, southern India.
The Thoothukudi - Nazareth Diocese is a diocese of Church of South India in Tamil nadu state of India.The diocese is one among the 22 dioceses of Church of South India in India.The cathedral of the diocese is St. John's Cathedral at Nazareth, Tamil Nadu.
Dornakal Diocese is a diocese of the Church of South India in Telangana state of India. The diocese mainly covers the pastorates in Warangal, Nalgonda, East Godavari and Khammam districts and also has churches in Odissha state.
St. Paul's Church is located in the corner of Old Poor House Road, and Bowring Hospital Road, next to the Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Bangalore Cantonment, India. St. Paul's has the distinction of being the very first Tamil Anglican Church in the erstwhile Mysore State. St. Paul's celebrated its 175th anniversary in May 2014. Like most old churches of Bangalore, the congregation of St. Paul's is spread all across Bangalore.
Edward Sargent (1815–1889) was an Anglican priest, most notably an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Madras.
Benjamin Henry Arthur Margoschis was a Protestant Christian missionary in India. He served the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) as an overseas missionary in India. The inhabitants of Nazareth, a small town in Tamil Nadu, called him the "Father of Nazareth" and Margoschis Aiyar. Aiyar means clergyman in the native language. Reverend Margoschis was responsible for the development of the small town of Nazareth, which is situated at the southern part of Tamil Nadu, India.
Samuel Ebenezer Clement Devasahayam is the second Bishop of Thoothukudi - Nazareth Diocese of the Church of South India.