St. Gregorios Indian Orthodox Maha Edavaka, Kuwait

Harvest Festival 2൦൦൯

Harvest Festival 2009 will be held on Friday 23rd October 2009, at Shaab Leisure Park from 8.00 AM to 6.00 PM.
Harvest Festival Committee Invites active participation of all our members to make this event a great success.

Our Parish

The history of our parish moves along with the uneven development of Kuwait as a whole during the past four decades. People started coming to Kuwait in search of jobs on the exploration of petroleum products in Kuwait by the forties of this century. It is learnt that people from all around the world came to Kuwait in steamers and local boats, as there was no other transportation facility to Kuwait at that time. During a time when life itself was going through very difficult and strange situations, without proper facilities to live in and take rest, those people who migrated from religiously oriented places looked for a common roof for their daily prayers and worship. They felt it necessary to come together, irrespective of factions and denominations. It resulted in the formation of a congregational setup with all the Christian factions. They jointly gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus in The National Evangelical Church (NEC) in premises of the American Medical Mission. It was the only place of worship for expatriate Christians at that time.
That was the beginning of a new era for the non-Catholic Malayalee Christians in Kuwait. All Malayalee Christians came together under the banner of Kuwait Town Malayalee Christian Congregation (K.T.M.C.C.) in 1956 for common worship and study. But a group of 40 members belonging to the Indian Orthodox Syrian Church started their own worship, to uphold the Orthodox faith and beliefs, every Tuesday evening from 1957 with the blessings of H. H. Moran Mar Baselios Geevarghese II. Thus it was the first among all Indian, particularly Malayalee congregations, to function independently. Later, all other major congregations in NEC started their own independent parishes.

The Kuwait Parish of the Indian Orthodox Syrian Church was founded in the name of the declared saint of Malankara church, Parumala Mar Gregorios on Jan 15,1957, but was nomenclated and approved in its General Body of 1994-1995 by the Diocesan Metropolitan as St. Gregorios Indian Orthodox Syrian Church. Under the spiritual leadership of H. H. Moran Mar Baselios Marthoma Didymos I and the diocesan metropolitan H. G. Dr. Joseph Mar Dionysius, Kuwait parish is now functioning as a unit in the Calcutta Diocese.

Our Parish was established in 1962 by the coming of Rev. Fr. George Kurian on a temporary basis for six months who used to visit Kuwait from Bahrain. A full time Vicar and continuous worship started from 1962 with 120 members in the register. This Parish was under the guidance of H.G. Alexios Mar Theodosius and H. G. Dr. Mathews Mar Athanasius (the late lamented Catholicose H. H. Moran Mar Baselios Marthoma Mathews I) as metropolitans in charge, at that time, of the Outside Kerala Diocese. In due course, it was part of the Bombay diocese under H. G. Dr. Thomas Mar Makarios till 1979 from whence it was transferred to the Calcutta diocese under H. G. Dr. Stephanos Mar Theodosius.

St. Gregorios Indian Orthodox Maha Edavaka, Kuwait

Thursday, September 24, 2009

St. Gregorios Indian Orthodox Maha Edavaka, Kuwait

Julien Thomas Jacob

Our Parish