Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and wife Kamala with Archbishop Varghese Chakkalakkal at the Bishop’s House in Kozhikode on Saturday.
| Photo Credit: K. Ragesh
Pope Francis elevated the Diocese of Calicut to the status of Metropolitan Archdiocese on Saturday.
The announcement was made at 3.30 p.m. (noon in Rome) by Mar Joseph Pamplany, the Archbishop of Thalassery, on the instructions of the Pope at the Bishop’s House at Malaparamba here.
The Archdiocese of Calicut will have Kannur and Sultanpet as its suffragan dioceses. Meanwhile, Bishop Varghese Chakkalakal of the Diocese of Calicut will become the first Metropolitan Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Calicut.
Bishops Alex Vadakumthala of Kannur, Remigiose Inchananiyil of Thamarassery, Peter Abir Antonysamy of Sultanpet, Ambrose Puthenveettil of Kottappuram and Auxiliary Bishops Antony Valunkal of Varapuzha and Dennis Kuruppassery of Kannur were present on the occasion.
Several socio-political leaders including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, All India Congress Committee general secretary K.C. Venugopal, and Kozhikode MP M.K. Raghavan visited Archbishop Chakkalakal to congratulate him on his elevation.
Archbishop Chakkalakal comes with decades of pastoral experience. He was ordained a priest in 1981 and was the first bishop of Kannur in 1998. He was transferred to Calicut in 2012. He served as secretary general of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) and the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) and currently leads the Kerala Regional Latin Catholic Bishops’ Council (KRLCBC) and the CCBI Commission for vocations, seminaries, and clergy.
Published – April 13, 2025 02:22 am IST
