Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Kolkata Kaleidoscope : St. Teresa's Church



I first came to know of the existence of this church when I was invited to a wedding reception of one of my ex-colleagues. I was a bit surprised at first since he was a Hindu and it was a reception party and not the wedding itself but when I reached there I realized that the backyard of the church has been rented out for the wedding reception. The church building in itself looked interesting so I came back after a few days to visit the church along with Saibal, a friend of mine (who was also invited to that wedding reception party).


It is a catholic church, formally called St. Teresa of Avila Church, built in the late 19th century and located on the AJC Bose Road near Moulali. There is very little information that I could gather on this particular church apart from the fact that it was founded between 1895-97 and was blessed by Monsignor Goethals. The church was renovated about a hundred years later and was blessed then by Mother Teresa. The church was named after St. Teresa of Avila, the prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint and Carmelite nun of the 16th century.



The beautiful red building of the church has an imposing structure and the interesting fact is that many of the instructions were written in Bengali indicating that it must be a popular parish amongst the Bengali speaking Anglo-Indian society. The church also contains a statue of Mother Teresa.


4 comments:

  1. Mr. Deep, on the second paragragh, second last line the name of our church spelled wrong, it should be Avila and not Anvil. Please correct it.
    Thanks

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Anthony for reading my blog so minutely and pointing out the typo. I have corrected it and updated the post.

      Thanks,
      Deep.

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  2. Please , can you tell me when we can come to visit this church on this next january 2014. is it opened all the day and every days?
    thanks if u can tell us some informations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Karine,

      I do not have exact information, but usually churches remain open in the morning from 9 or 10 am. I think you may visit at that time.

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