Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Blazing heat fails to deter Indian pilgrims

Shrine honours St. Thomas who baptized the first Indian Christians

CNS PHOTO | ANTO AKKARA More than 50,000 pilgrims walked under a blazing sun at the St. Thomas the Apostle's shrine.

PALAYOOR, INDIA - A lone figure walked up the dusty road ahead of the thousands of pilgrims who had stopped for a few minutes at the parish in the town of Puranattukara. A third of the way through the 30-km trek, Chacko Kakkassery did not want to stop lest he fall too far behind the rest of the throng.

"I am finding it difficult to keep pace with them," Kakkassery, 51, said March 21 as he trudged ahead toward the shrine of St. Thomas the Apostle at Palayoor in southern Kerala state.

Kakkassery was one of an estimated 50,000 pilgrims making at least part of the arduous pilgrimage under a blazing sun from Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral of the Syro-Malabar Archdiocese of Trichur to the shrine.

St. Thomas landed at ancient port of Crangannore - now known as Kodungallur - in AD 52 and later travelled by boat to Palayoor where he baptized India's first Christians. Several monuments mark the remnants of the church St. Thomas built, his landing spot on the shore and the baptismal font where the first Christian converts were baptized.

Retired Syro-Malabar Archbishop Jacob Thoomkuzhy said he initiated the pilgrimage in 1998 "to awaken the people's interest in the apostolic legacy and heritage of the shrine. It is a joy for me to see that the pilgrimage has become a movement to assert our faith."

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