Church of Our Lady of Rosary, Kallianpur

The story of Church of Our Lady of Rosary, Kallianpur

The Church of Our Lady of Rosary, better known as Mount Rosary Church, is the church building you’re standing in front of, a Roman Catholic church in Kallianpur, close to NH 66.

Its story begins in 1837, during the Goan schism, when some Catholic families withdrew from their parish Milagres Cathedral and accepted the jurisdiction of the Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly. They first built a church a few yards away from Milagres Cathedral. In 1880, Fr Albert D’Souza decided to build a new church and moved the location to Nejar Hill. The foundation stone of that new church was blessed by the Bishop of Mangalore, the Most Rev. Pagani, on 26 November 1880.

The church you see today grew from that project, but it did not go up all at once. Fr Albert D’Souza could not finish it because of paucity of funds. Mattheus Rebello, the hereditary Patel of Kallianpurl, pledged his property, took a loan and completed the church building. That makes the site not just a parish landmark, but a place shaped by local commitment as well as clergy direction.

The church has undergone alterations and additions since then, and its history also includes parish institutions around it: a primary school for girls started in 1925, Lourdes Hospital inaugurated on 1 June 1958, and Mount Rosary English Medium School begun in 1997, with its new building opened on 1 June 1999.

By 2012, Mount Rosary Church had completed 175 years of existence, and the parish decided to rebuild the church to provide enough space for the ever-increasing parishioners. The foundation stone for the new church was blessed during Mass at the Millennium auditorium on 3 March 2012 and then laid at the site in the presence of parish leaders and many parishioners.

What to look for here is the layered life of the place itself: a church rebuilt, enlarged, and kept central to parish use over time.