1745

There is no cause for delay

Neelakanta Pillai was already a man of standing when he came to the font: an officer at the court of the king of Travancore, of good family, and thirty-two years old. It was Eustache de Lannoy, an officer of the king's own army, who first spoke to him of the Christian faith and sent him on to Fr Buttari, the priest of Vadakkankulam. Buttari could see the persecution such a convert would draw, and he did not hurry. He “judged it necessary to defer the grace he so ardently desired; and, having tested him long, admitted him to the sacrament of regeneration.” A Protestant historian of Travancore records what the waiting man said to the hesitating priest: “There is no cause for delay. This is no compulsory baptism. I came here to receive the sacraments not by force, but by my own free will and desire. I shall even give up my life to maintain the Truth of which I received the light and of which I am convinced.” He would. The instruction ran nine months. On 14 May 1745 the water was poured in the church here, with the catechist Gnanaprakasam Pillai standing as his godfather, and the officer took the name Lazarus, and in Tamil Devasahayam, God is my help.

DocumentedThis moment rests on 6 sources.
Mackenzie 1901p. 80
80 Another Jesuit Father who was for a time at Ambalakada is the Martyr, B. John de Brito. He arrived at Ambalakada in 1673 and seems to have spent three years there, preparing to join the Madura mission. In 1676 or later he set out with Father Andre Freire, S. J., and walked to Sattiamangalam in the Ooimbatore district, that being the nearest church of the Madura mission, and there John de Britto had to rest for a month before he was able to continue his journey. Mission du Madure, iii. 255. When Mgr. deTournon expressed disapproval of some of the methods of the Madura mission, one priest, Father Simon Carvalho, left Madura and founded a mission station at Neman near Vadakenkulam, on the Tinnevelly frontier of South Travancore in the year 1708. This station from 1743 was under Father Bouttari, S. J., who in 1745 baptised a Travancore convert who is reverenced as a martyr. Nilakandan Pillai, a man of good family, held office in the Court of the Raja. He was disposed to become a Christian and after discussions on Christianity with Bustache de Lannoy, a Belgian officer in the Travancore Army, Nilakandan Pillai was baptised, being then thirtytwo years of age, and he took the Christian name Devasagayam. Four years afterwards he was imprsoned because of his change of religion and after three years of imprisonment he was shot in 1752 by order of the Raja at Aramboli about the fifty-first mile on the road from Trevandrum to Tin nevelly. His corpse was thrown into the jungle, but the Christians got possession of the corpse, burned it and buried the ashes in a tomb which still exists in the centre of the church of St. Francis Xavier at Kottar. (81) . In the time of Bishop Florentius a young French Savant, named Anquetil du Perron, was at Cochin. The Dutch Commandeur refused him permission to visit Verapoly. but he went without leave and has written a very lively account of his visit in Zendaresta. clvi. Ho gives the number of Christians as two hundred thousand, of whom one hundred thousand were Romo-Syrians, fifty thousand were Latin Catholics and fifty thousand were under Mar Thomas. It was also in the time of Bishop Florentius that Rama Varma, the victorious Raja of Travancore, along with his General. Eustache de Lannoy, visited Verapoly. It is said that the Raja then confirmed the rent free tenure of the ground, including the accretions which had formed since the original grant by the Raja of Cochin. In the incursions by Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan some of the Mysore troops did reach Verapoly, but they caused little damage, except that the archives of the mission during the hasty removal were lost in the lagoon. There is little on record to show what was the state of affairs under those two bishops who ruled from 1712 to 1773, sixty-one years, but there is an order issued by Propaganda, dated August 31st 1771, requiring a stricter discipline among the Christians. Students admitted to the Seminary must be seventeen years of age and all candidates for the priesthood, Latin and Syrian, must be educated together in the Seminary at Verapoly. The Missionaries are ordered to visit every church, remaining at least twenty days at each church. The ignorance and negligence of the Native Clergy are deplored and rules are laid down to remedy this. (82) . The bishop was Bavarian and the missionaries at Verapoly were Italian and that may have been one reason why there was discord between the bishop and his European Clergy. When the dissension became acute Bishop Charles of St. Conrad came from Bombay, and endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation but without success. He had been Coadjutor at Verapoly from 1764 to 1773 before he went to Bombay so he knew this coast. When Bishop Francis left India, Bishop Charles administered the Verapoly mission, with the consent of the Dutch. They called him Bishop Vanischt, so he probably was Flemish. List of Ancient Dutch Records in Fort St. George. 1053, 1131. India Orientalis Christiana, SS.
80

Christianity in TravancoreG. T. Mackenzie — Trivandrum: Government Press, 1901

Published before 1930. In the public domain, and reproduced here in full.

Mackenzie 1901 · p. 80

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The printed page 80 of Christianity in Travancore, photographed from the book

What this source establishes

The outside witness to the parish's central fact. G. T. Mackenzie, a British administrator surveying Christianity in Travancore, records from the other side that Fr Bouttari baptised the convert here in 1745 — a man of good family who held office in the court of the Raja, baptised "being then thirty-two years of age", who took the name Devasagayam. He names the man who first drew him toward the faith, Eustache de Lannoy, and traces the death four years' imprisonment later, in 1752.