Reverend Eldo Rambachen

 

It was a pleasant experience for me to have visited the St. Thomas' dayara on October 2nd on the occasion of a meeting of Sunday School teachers there.

No wonder, its serene setting and spiritual moorings had contributed to the making of a saint in Geevarghese Mar Gregorios.

The fact that the dayara is 800 years old is very important from heritage point of view. (Like in the case of the Thiruvithamcode church, believed to be established by St. Thomas the Apostle, I wonder whether it was a right decision to have built the school so near to the dayara. In Thiruvithamcode, the new buildings that came up on the church premises are an eyesore for a history/archaeology student.) Perhaps, the Vettickal dayara must the longest-surviving Christian monastery in the entire country. But, as always, we the Malankara Orthodox people fail to understand the historical and archaeological importance of such structures even from our Church point of view.

However, it is a welcome gesture on your part to have decided to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the dayara and bring Orthodox people there to introduce them to the monastery.

I pray that the dayara become a nerve centre of Orthodox asceticism of  the united Church after our brethren in the Patriarch faction return to the mother Church.

I attended the meeting as a teacher of the Sunday School at the St. George's Orthodox Cathedral, Thiruvananthapuram. The meeting was very well organised. Thomas Jacob

Thiruvananthapuram.