Rooted

As a mission society of over 200 years, we have a rich and varied history. Many of our historical roots are deeply valued and so it was with real pleasure that CMS Ireland’s Chair of Trustees, David Reynolds, met recently with Bishop Padma Rao, Bishop of Dornakal in the Church of South India. Dornakal is a rural Diocese in Telegana State, situated in the south-central part of the Indian subcontinent on the high Deccan Plateau.

Anthony Blacker Elliott by C.H. Doveton vintage bromide print, 1920s. National Portrait Gallery Ref x159027 / Creative

The meeting was set up by Rev John Jawahar, a retired priest from the Diocese, now living in Dublin. Rev John serves as an honorary representative of Dornakal Diocese in Ireland and the UK, mainly in London. The Dornakal Diocese was founded in 1912 by Bishop V.S. Azariah, the first Indian Bishop, with the support of CMS and the Indian Missionary Society.

Bishop Anthony Blacker Elliott, a native of Dublin, Ireland, succeeded Azariah as the second Bishop in 1913. Elliott studied at TCD, graduating in 1912, and went to India as a CMS missionary in 1913, shortly after the Diocese was established. He served as Assistant Bishop from 1935 and served as Bishop from 1945 to 1955. He died in 1970 and is buried at the Epiphany Cathedral in Dornakal.

Bishop Elliott is still remembered in Dornakal. Several clergy children in the Dornakal Diocese bear the name Elliott, as does Rev John’s Dublin-born grandson.

Bishop Padma Rao and Rev John Jawahar, with their wives, meet David Reynolds