Blessed Kunjachan
Fr Augustine Thevarparampil (1891–1973) 

Blessed Kunjachan was a Syro-Malabar Catholic priest from Ramapuram, Kerala, remembered for a lifetime of service among Dalit communities and for a gentle, stubborn holiness that resisted the caste exclusions of his day. He was beatified on 30 April 2006 at his home parish in Ramapuram, an event attended by tens of thousands and presided over, in the Pope’s name, by Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil. 

He was born on 1 April 1891 to Itty Iype and Eliswa in the Thevarparambil family, a branch of the ancient Kuzhumbil lineage; baptized a week later at St Augustine’s, Ramapuram, he was named Augustine after the parish’s patron. Early schooling began locally and then at St Ephrem’s, Mannanam, where a steady piety and studiousness marked him out for seminary. 

Augustine entered the minor seminary at Changanacherry and continued major seminary formation at Puthenpally, Varapuzha. He received his cassock in July 1915 and was ordained priest on 17 December 1921 by Bishop Thomas Kurialacherry. He offered his first Mass at Ramapuram and served briefly in Kadanad (with charge of Manathoor), before a period of ill health returned him to his home parish in 1926. These basic coordinates—cassock in 1915, ordination in 1921, early assignment and illness—are attested in the official profile maintained by the Eparchy of Palai.

It was at Ramapuram, during an annual parish retreat in 1926 preached by a Carmelite missionary (Fr Hilarios, TOCD), that Augustine glimpsed his life’s mission. Landlords brought their laborers—mostly Dalits—to the church; catechesis and baptisms followed; and the parish priest entrusted care of the neophytes to the young assistant. From then on, he lived “as one among them,” visiting scattered hamlets on foot, teaching the rudiments of faith, helping with documents, food, and schooling, and baptizing—by all accounts—many thousands. The Palai diocesan narrative details his itinerary through outlying villages and his creation of simple “kalari” schools where Dalit children, otherwise excluded from public education, could learn to read and write. 

His nickname, Kunjachan—“little father” in Malayalam—came from his small stature and even smaller demands on himself. Witnesses remembered the rhythm of his days: long prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, a frugal breakfast, and hours of walking dusty tracks with a catechist to reach families others overlooked. He kept no property, spent stipends on the poor, and refused honors. His style was neither polemical nor performative; he preached with quiet presence, material help, and the sacraments. Contemporary Catholic media later described him as a “humble and simple priest” whose life itself was the homily.

Caste realities frame his vocation. In early twentieth-century Travancore and the wider Madras Presidency, Dalit access to schooling and civic goods was blocked by law and custom; agitation for change gathered slowly across decades. Kunjachan’s parish-level response—setting up small schools, escorting children into classrooms, obtaining papers, arranging marriages, and defending dignity—was a counter-cultural pastoral practice rooted in Christian equality. The Palai dossier records his explicit decision to focus his priesthood among those most excluded, and local histories recall the educational barriers Dalit children faced in that era. 

Kunjachan also wrote a striking testament shortly before death. It renounced all possessions, asked for a funeral “in the simplest way,” and expressed a desire to be buried among Dalit Christians, “with whom I have been staying since 1926.” The text survives in church and diocesan retellings. Although his wish about burial in the common cemetery was not followed—he was interred in a tomb at St Augustine’s—the will itself clarifies what he thought holiness required: to remain, even in death, with the poor he had served. KCBC+1

He died on 16 October 1973 at Ramapuram. People spoke simply: “a saint has passed.” Within days, his tomb became a site of prayer and steady pilgrimage—across caste and religion—because people believed they received favors through his intercession. The old church at Ramapuram now houses his tomb; the parish complex, among Kerala’s historic shrines, has become a place where biography, devotion, and local memory meet. 

The canonical process began in 1987 with the diocesan inquiry in Palai, moved to Rome with the submission of the Positio in 1997, and led to recognition of his heroic virtues by Pope John Paul II on 22 June 2004 (title: Venerable). The miracle for beatification concerned the sudden, complete cure of a boy, Gilson Varghese (born with a clubfoot), after prayers at Kunjachan’s tomb and continued family intercession. Medical experts, theologians, and bishops in Rome each issued positive judgments; on 19 December 2005 Pope Benedict XVI authorized the decree on the miracle. The beatification followed on 30 April 2006 at Ramapuram. 

Reports from that day tell their own story. AsiaNews and UCAN documented a crowd of roughly 60,000, with the Apostolic Nuncio, Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, and a large assembly of bishops, priests, and religious in attendance; Vatican Radio called him “India’s apostle of the Dalits,” a line that has endured in popular memory. The ceremony was conducted in Latin and Malayalam; the proclamation invoked his example as a summons to share God’s love with the downtrodden. 

What, more concretely, was his method? The diocesan file highlights repeated patterns. He organized catechists from within Dalit communities and travelled with them; he opened makeshift schools; he intervened with officials to secure land, wages, and papers; he accompanied families to parishes that resisted their full inclusion; and he deliberately kept a low profile, avoiding public controversy that could blow back on his people. His pastoral map reads like a worker’s diary: Uzhavoor, Kurichithanam, Edakkoli, Chittar, Areekara, Veliyannoor, Kondadu, Amanakara, Poovakulam, Neeranthanam, Nellappara, Kurinji, Pizhaku, Mattathipara, Ezhacherry, Chakkampuzha, and estates near Chennad. 

Two features of his witness stand out for ethics and social thought. First, he treated conversion as a comprehensive good: faith, yes, but also literacy, basic health, and an insistence on dignity in the face of degrading customs. That integrality—sacrament with schooling, prayer with paperwork—remains a check on any spirituality that floats above structural harm. Second, his desire to be buried among Dalit Christians was not a romantic gesture; it was pedagogy by will: a final, public refusal of distance from people whom others kept at arm’s length. The written testament and the community’s eventual decision to honor him with a church tomb together show how his life disrupted expectations, even within the Church he loved. 

Today, the shrine at Ramapuram welcomes pilgrims year-round; the Syro-Malabar Church marks his feast on 16 October; and his cause advances with growing devotion. For many in Kerala and beyond, “Kunjachan” is less a title than a style: unadorned closeness to the poor, pastoral endurance, and a refusal to let caste decide who counts. Those contours are historically documented and liturgically remembered; they also remain morally instructive in a society still wrestling with exclusions that he quietly, steadily opposed.