Parampuzha Bethlehem Church. This is the most famous land mark in parampuzha. The church was built in 1915. (Wow! folks get ready for celebrating its 100th year!!)

History

The church was built in 1915 with the support of all the people in Parampuzha. Not just Catholics. Parampuzha, like the rest of the state, always realized the value of social life and churches and temples used to be the social media in those days.

The land required to build the church & a possible school was donated by a generous person named Irumpanam Ouseph. He was thoughtful enough to give enough land to the church so that, the church and folks involved with the church could be self sufficient in difficult times by utilizing the many acres of land (close to a hundred, I was told)  donated by Mr. Ouseph.  Which makes sense, considering how the folks might have felt about the continuous collections they have to put up with in those days for the church fund. (In fact this is one of the reasons, even today, Catholics in Kerala think, the church can survive without the Sunday collections.!! – or atleast this is how they justify themselves, I guess.)

So, hats of to Mr. Ouseph. May your soul rest in peace.

Hats off to all those who were alive in 1915 in Parampuzha!  Think about, what they have to go though, to build the Church in the midst of a World War. I am sure, it had its effect in the area..

Speaking of visionaries there were many others as well. Who donated money and efforts to build the church. It will be huge list, if I have to mention each of them..

Hats off to the leadership which managed to complete the project and the sacrifices to all those involved.And a big Thank you!!

The Meenachil Syndrome

As is the case even today, the people of Kottayam, are famous for narrow mindedness and their ability to cluster themselves for their unique needs. They are active as fire-ants all the time and act like vultures when needed. I can only imagine the heated discussions in those times about the church project.

One of the decisions they made, was to “buy” the specific lot where they wanted to build the church instead of just accepting it as a donation. Yes, they “bought” the lot where church was to be built for some 20 rupees or so and accepted the rest acres of land as a donation. The thought behind this was that the person later on, cannot claim the ownership of the Church. That makes sense, when you compare the cost of a fully built church and the value of the land. And who knows how the kids/grand kids of the donor might do in future. The thought might have been, never get fooled by someone. Wonder how Mr. Ouseph felt about these type of feedbacks and the trust people had in him in those days.

The new Church

The church was rebuilt in the 1950s again and folks who participated in that process can tell us more stories during the time. The church was expanded to to the bigger one as we see today. Hey if you know of some one who helped grab them and ask about the times. From what I hear, most of the labour was voluntary efforts from parampuzha folks. Yes, including the kids and youth of 1950s. They might be a bit old now, but I can see most of them still active with other palli projects like the Auditorium, parish hall etc.

Thanks to our forefathers!!

Any way, at the end, we now have this beautiful church. The church has a very good school associated with it.  I don’t think you can name a country where a student from Parampuzha is not currently living.