Concelebrated Holy Qurbono at Historic Site

On Sunday, June 24th, His Beatitude Moran Mor Baselios Cleemis Catholicos, the Head and Father of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, concelebrated the Holy Qurbono with His Excellency Most Rev. Thomas Mar Eusebius, the Bishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Exarchate and the Apostolic Visitor to Canada and Europe, at St. Francis Xavier’s Church in Dublin, Ireland. The celebration of the Holy Qurbono occured exactly eighty years after the Servant of God, Archbishop Mar Ivanios, the first Archbishop of Trivandrum, celebrated Holy Qurbono at this very church.

In 1932, after receiving the pallium from the hands of the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Pius XI, Mar Ivanios journeyed to Dublin to participate in the thirty-first International Eucharistic Congress, which was held in Dublin, Ireland from 22-26 June. During his visit, Mar Ivanios was a guest of the Jesuits and stayed at Rathfarnham Castle. On June 24, 1932, he celebrated the Holy Qurbono according to the Malankara rite. This was the first public Holy Qurbono which he celebrated after receiving the sacred pallium.

In 2012, the Head and Father of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, Moran Mor Baselios Cleemis Catholicos, made his first apostolic visit to Ireland and participated in the formal inauguration of the Malankara Catholic Missions in Ireland. Through a special act of divine providence, the Major Archbishop Catholicos celebrated Holy Qurbono in the very church where Mar Ivanios had celebrated the Malankara Holy Qurbono eighty years earlier. The Bishop of the Exarchate, Mar Eusebius, concelebrated and participated in the inauguration of the Irish Missions.