Mumbai church celebrates 150 yrs by launching new website

MUMBAI: The parish of Our Lady of Assumption, Kandivli (W) is celebrating its sesquicentennial jubilee with the inauguration of a renovated cemetery and a website this week.
The cemetery will provide the much-needed space for burials, while the website will detail the long history of Christians in the area. “While we will be having special prayer services in the church along with a festival, we will also be making people aware of the heritage of this parish,” said Harold Mendes, a local East Indian.
Though the current parish was established on October 27, 1861, local Christians were present in the area since 1560. Mendes said that Kandivli in those times was a small village surrounded by trees and paddy fields. According to church records, says Mendes, a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Assumption was built in Candolim (Kandivli).
The chapel came under the jurisdiction of the church at Magatana, near the present Kandivli railway station, which was built by local Catholics in 1630. When the Magatana parish was absorbed into the parish of Poisur in 1777, the chapel came under the jurisdiction of Our Lady of Remedies at Poisur. Fr Larry Pereira, a local historian, said that as per the records now available, there definitely was a church or a chapel in the area in 1560. Paulo Trinidade, a chronicler, wrote about a Franciscan church in 1630.