Karnataka Mission

www.zionmcbs.org

In 1978 the district of Shimoga, in Karnataka, under the jurisdiction of Mananthavdy diocese, was entrusted to the MCBS Congregation for pastoral care and evangelization in condition that it will become an ecclesiastical unit when it has 12 priests and 20 mission centres. From then on, for the past 32 years the Congregation spent all its energy to develop the Mission into the status of a diocese. On Monday, 21 August 2007, Varkey Cardinal Vithayathil, the Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church erected a new Syro-Malabar diocese, the diocese of Bhadravathi, carving out the entire civil district of Shimoga from the territory of the diocese of Mananthavady. On 21st August 2007, Fr. Joseph Arumachadathu MCBS was appointed as the first Bishop of Bhadravathi diocese and was consecrated on 25th October 20007. The growing missionary enthusiasm of our Congregation and the steadily increasing number of our members has prompted us to extend our missionary activities even beyond the territory of the civil district Shimoga. It is in this context that the erection of Karnataka region becomes consequential.