Mar Baselios CMI Ashram
Thiruvalla
ESTD: 1985

About

Thiruvalla is a Christian centre People here are mostly of the Jacobite. There are also a few faithful of the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Churches. But there was not any church of the Syro-Malabar faithful in the area. When the boundary of the Syro-Malabar territory was extended up to the Cape in 1956, it was felt very useful and even necessary that we have an establishment in Thiruvalla. In 1984 Sri Mathai Cyriac Nelluvelil and Sri Mathai Mapila offered to the province a plot of land in the town, close to the railway station and to the Thiruvalla Bishop's house, to the province. In 1985 the province put up a small building on the spot dedicated to Mar. Basilios. This house was considered as an ecumenical centre for dialogue among the different Christian groups.

In the meantime Fr. Kurian Mukocherill, then superior of the Mar Basilios Ashram, came to understand that at Muthhoot, in Thiruvalla itself, the Jacobite Metropolitan Archbishop Mar Theophilus was conducting an English medium UP school, by the side of the MC Road, which he was desiring to dispose off. Fr. Kuriachen got in touch with the metropolitan and after mutual discussion the Metropolitan agreed to hand over the school to the CMIs at a cost fixed by him.

In accordance with the advice of the provincial a society by the name Mar Basilios Educational and Cultural Society was established consisting of Fr. Kurian Mukocheril, Mr. Mathai Cyriac Nelluvelil, and Mr. Antony Kalayil, and registered. There was, at the time, a factory remaining closed for many years just in front of the school. This factory with its compound of about half an acre, was soon purchased. After demolishing the factory a beautiful church and a two-storied house were built the name Mar Basilios Ashram. In June 1987 the church was erected as a parish church under the Archdiocese of Changanacherry. Christ Central School established in 1985 recently got a new building