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Ramapuram, St. Augustine's Forane Church |
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Name: |
Ramapuram, St. Augustine's Forane Church | |||||||||||||
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Estd: |
18th century | ||||||||||||||
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| Telephone (O) | +91 4822-260323 | ||||||||||||||
| Contact: St. Augustine's Forane Church ! Ramapuram Bazar Post ! Kottayam Dist ! Kerala - 686 576 | |||||||||||||||
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History |
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| St. Augustine's Church at Ramapuram where the mortal remains of the Blessed Thevarparambil Kunjachan are kept was built in the 15th century AD. The patron saint of the parish is St. Augustine. When the first church was not sufficient for the faithful the forefathers had the wisdom NOT to demolish the old church and a new church was built in the 18th century with the same frontagehence now there are two churches side by side thus making the TWIN churches which is unique. The structures represent a unique architectural style prevalent in the early colonial period with the Persian facade showing marked influence over the Portuguese style. The Roman columns and the veranda too are rare features of the churches of a bygone era. The two churches which form a contiguous monument had been an active element in the Syrian Christian history for the past nearly five centuries. It was the controversial Archbishop Alexis de Menezis who took the initiative in rededicating the then church (the smaller one which was in the name of St. Mary originally) to St. Augustine; it was from here that Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar the Governor of Kodungallur ruled the Syrian Christian community and it is here his mortal remains are interred; it was here that the church council met for centuries. | |||||||||||||||
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