Six years after the canonization of Sr Alphonsa (Alphonsa-mma) of Bharananganam as India’s first woman saint, The Vatican will confer sainthood on two other Keralites, Fr Kuriakose Elias Chavara (Chavara Achan) and Sr Euphrasia Eluvathingal (Evuprasiamma), on November 23 this year, Pope Francis announced on Thursday.
As per reports from the Vatican, the Pope’s announcement, which the Catholics of Kerala have been waiting since April 3, the day the Pope declared the decision to confer the two with sainthood, was made in a meeting of the Cardinals at the St Peter’s Square. Alphonsa was canonized in 2008 by then Pope Benedict XVI.
The Pope had on March 8 last signed a report submitted by the Vatican Commission accepting the miracle of one nine-year-old Maria Jose Rose from Pala, Kottayam getting cured of a serious eye ailment after praying at the tomb of Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara. Chavara Achan and Evuprasiamma belonged to the Kerala-based Syro-Malabar Church like Alphonsamma.
Born in Kainakari near Alappuzha in 1805, Fr Kuriakose Elias was a social reformer and educator of the Kerala Catholic Church who said that schools should be opened along with churches.