1848
What the Bishop asked for
Coming back into his mission from the Malabar coast in 1848, Bishop Alexis Canoz entered it by this village. In his own account of the year he set this place down as “Vadakencoulam, a great and good Christian community, of which I made the visitation.” He came on the 21st of June, and before he went he asked the people to begin putting money aside for a large new church. They were not a rich village. It took them seven years. Then he came back and blessed the stone.
In English
"After some weeks of well-earned rest, he resumed his apostolic journeys, visited Vadakenkoulam; and, continuing his march, sometimes along the coast, sometimes inland, across a sandy plain, he arrived at last at Tuticorin."
What this source establishes
All that an outside source says: on his pastoral tour of 1848 Bishop Canoz "visited Vadakenkoulam". The 21 June date and the request that the people begin gathering money for a large new church are the parish's own history, and no outside source remembers them.