St. Joseph's Catholic Church (Baramulla)

St. Joseph's Catholic Church is a parish of the Roman Catholic Church in Baramulla,[1][2][3] Jammu and Kashmir, India.[4][5] It was established in 1891, by the Mill Hill Missionaries, making it the oldest Catholic church in Jammu and Kashmir,[6] and currently belongs to the Jammu Srinagar Diocese.[7][8] St. Joseph's Church, St. Joseph's Hospital and St. Joseph's School are located on the same campus as the parish church. It is the only church in the town, and there are only few Christian families in the community.

St. Joseph's Catholic Church
سینٹ جوزف کیتھولک چرچ
St. Joseph Catholic Church, Baramulla 2
LocationBaramulla
CountryIndia
DenominationRoman Catholic
Weekly attendance20
History
StatusParish church
Founded1891 (1891)
Founder(s)Mill Hill Missionaries
DedicationSaint Joseph
Architecture
Functional statusActive
Architectural typeGothic Revival
Specifications
Capacity500
Bells1 (1)
Administration
ParishSt. Joseph's Parish
ArchdioceseRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Delhi
DioceseRoman Catholic Diocese of Jammu–Srinagar
Clergy
ArchbishopAnil Joseph Thomas Couto
Bishop(s)Ivan Pereira

History

St. Joseph's Church was started by Mill Hill Missionaries who came from the Apostolic Prefecture of Kafiristan and Kashmir, under the Diocese of Lahore. After their departure, the mission was cared for by the Capuchin Fathers, and later by the Society of Jesus. It is now part of the Diocese of Jammu Srinagar. Father Jim Borst MHM, a well-known missionary and former parish priest, died recently in Srinagar City.

The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 noted:[9]

At Baramulla, in Kashmir, Father Simon, assisted by a staff of twelve lay teachers, conducts an important school for native Kashmir boys. The pupils number three hundred. The prefecture comprises about fifteen million inhabitants. Twelve million five hundred thousand of these are Mohammedans, two million are Hindus, five hundred thousand are Buddhists and about five thousand are Catholics.

In colonial India, the church was affiliated to the University of Lahore in 1919.[10]

Persecution of local Christians
Further information: Violence against Christians in India § Jammu and Kashmir

In late October 1947, leading into the Kashmir Conflict of 1947, tribal invaders, mostly from colonial India's North West Frontier Province, now part of Pakistan, had stormed Baramulla attacked the church, school, and hospital, killing the Mother Superior and Assistant Mother Sister M. Teresalina Joaquina FMM.[11][12]

Fr. Jim Borst MHM, who has been working in Jammu and Kashmir since 1963, including serving as the principal of St. Joseph's School, was given a Quit India Notice from Kashmir's Foreigners Registration Office in 2004.[13]

References
  1. Dhar, D. N. (1 January 2001). Dynamics of political change in Kashmir: from ancient to modern times. Kanishka Publishers, Distributors. ISBN 9788173914188.
  2. Misra, Neelesh (12 March 2012). The Absent State. Hachette India. ISBN 9789350093665.
  3. Raina, Dina Nath (1994). Kashmir - distortions and reality. Reliance Pub. House. ISBN 9788185972527.
  4. "St. Joseph's Catholic Church (Baramulla) : IndiaFree.org". indiafree.org. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  5. "St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Baramulla, India Tourist Information". TouristLink. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
  6. GreaterKashmir.com (Greater Service). "Christmas celebrated with fervor Lastupdate:- Thu, 26 Dec 2013 18:30:00 GMT GreaterKashmir.com". greaterkashmir.com. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  7. The Catholic Directory of India. St. Paul Publications. 2005. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
  8. "Diocese of Jammu Srinagar | A diocese was erected on September 7, 1986, with St. Mary's Jammu Cantt, as Cathedral". jammusrinagardiocese.org. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  9. Charles George Herbermann; Edward Aloysius Pace; Condé Bénoist Pallen; Thomas Joseph Shahan; John Joseph Wynne; Andrew Alphonsus MacErlean (1912). The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church. Robert Appleton Company. pp. 591–.
  10. Emanual Nahar (1 January 2007). Minority politics in India: role and impact of Christians in Punjab politics. Arun Pub. House. p. 51. ISBN 978-81-8048-085-0.
  11. Whitehead, Andrew (19 October 2007). "Black day in paradise". Financial Times. Retrieved 31 March 2020. The attackers, Tom would later learn, had been tribesmen from the barren hills of Hazara and Waziristan. And their ransacking of St Joseph’s mission, in the riverside town of Baramulla, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, was part of a jihad to claim Kashmir – a Muslim-majority, Hindu-ruled state – for the new nation of Pakistan. ... On the day of Tom and Biddy Dykes’s death, Lord Mountbatten, the first governor general of independent India, had accepted Kashmir’s accession. That morning, as the tribesmen ransacked St Joseph’s, the first Indian troops were airlifted into the Kashmir valley. By the end of the day, about 300 Sikh soldiers had been flown in to the tiny landing strip outside Srinagar. Some had advanced to within hailing distance of the Catholic mission at Baramulla, and could hear the cries and see the flames as the town was plundered. Indian soldiers have been in Kashmir ever since, in what has become the country’s most disaffected state. As Indian troops started to repel the Pakistani tribesmen, the Dykes boys and the other survivors at the mission, their numbers swelled by local non-Muslim refugees, were confined to a single hospital ward, about 80 people in all.
  12. John C. B. Webster (15 November 2007). A social history of Christianity: North-West India since 1800. Oxford University Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-19-569045-3.
  13. Senate (U S) Committee on Foreign Relations (August 2005). Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, 2004. Government Printing Office. pp. 638–. ISBN 978-0-16-072552-4.


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