Welcome of the Diocese of Thanjavur

The Diocese of Thanjavur was created on November 22, 1952 through the papal bull “Ex Primaevae Ecclesiae” when it was bifurcated from the ancient See of Mylapore. It had to wait for four more months for the nomination of its new bishop. Most Rev. Dr.R.A.Sundaram, an illustrious son of the soil, was nominated the first Bishop of Thanjavur on February 4, 1953 and was consecrated at Chennai on 19th March 1953. It is interesting to note that in 1843 itself, the then Apostolic Prefect of Pondicherry, Msgr.Bonnand proposed that Thanjavur be erected an Apostolic Vicariate.

Mylapore had become a diocese in 1606 and was the third oldest diocese of India till it was amalgamated with Madras in 1952. Its jurisdiction extended from the present Diocese of Thoothukudi in Tamilnadu to what is now known as West Bengal. Many missionaries including Franciscans, Augustinians, Dominicans and Jesuits like Robert de Nobili (the Father of Tamil Prose), Balthasar da Costa (the founder of Thanjavur Mission), John de Britto (the first Jesuit saint in India), Antam de Proenca (whose Tamil Portuguese, Dictionary was the first of its kind to be printed) and Costanzo Giosseffo Beschi (fondly called by the Tamils Veeramamunivar, who was the author of the Tamil Catholic epic Thembavani, the first European scholar to scientifically study Tamil grammar and compose new Tamil grammar both in Tamil as well as in Latin and the first to compile a Tamil Tamil Dictionary called Saduragarathi) had toiled laboriously in the area presently covered by Thanjavur Diocese.