1685–86

About two hundred baptised

The parish's own history records that on the same occasion as the chapel about two hundred people received baptism, the first great harvest of Vadakkankulam. It dates this to 1685; Bishop A. Stephen's jubilee message of 2022 puts de Britto's coming, the baptisms and the church together in 1686. The colonial gazetteer, writing from outside the parish, gives no number — only that a congregation "appears definitely to have been formed by 1685" — and it has de Britto called away to Kumbakonam, not returning.

Parish traditionThis moment rests on 3 sources.
Bishop Stephen 2022
came to Vadakkankulam in the year 1686, gave baptism, brought them into the Catholic Church, and built a church

Bishop A. Stephen's jubilee message2022 — a diocesan witness, not an outside one

A published web source. We quote it and link to it.

What this source establishes

The 1686 dating — the one witness that disagrees with the parish's own 1685. A diocesan witness, so it is an institution reporting on itself, not an outside check.