Spanish Jesuit Mission to India
In 1947 this cinderella was issued to commemorate the 25th anniversary of evangelization by Spanish Jesuit missionaries in Bombay and Ahmedabad (India) which had begun in 1922. The Ahmedabad mission was such a success that two years after this cinderella was issued the Ahmedabad Diocese was formed on May 5, 1949, the first Bishop of Ahmedabad being the Karachi-born Jesuit Edwin Pinto, SJ (1901-1978). One of the missionaries arriving in Bombay in 1922 was Fr. Henry Heras, SJ who was appointed to teach History at St. Xavier's College, Bombay (Mumbai).
St. Joseph's Boys' High School, Bangalore
INDIA, 2008, the 150th anniversary of the school & its FDI cancel,
Scott 2274
St. Joseph's Boys' High School, Bangalore was founded in 1858 originally to educate European and Anglo-Indian boys. After India's Independence, admission was extended to all nationalities and religions. In 1854 the priests of the Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP) built a school, St. Joseph's Seminary, and orphanage at St. Johns Hill, Bangalore . When Madras University was established in 1858, the father at St. Joseph's decided to open a school for European boys. By 1875 the orphanage was moved and the seminary closed. After the First World War it became difficult for the French Fathers, depleted by the war, to continue to send priests to the school. The Bishop of Mysore, Maurice-Bernard-Benoit-Joseph Despatures, MEP, invited the Jesuits to take over the school, which they did in 1937. More
St. Joseph's College, Bangalore
INDIA, 2009, with its special FDI cancel
St. Joseph's College in Bangalore is an autonomous Jesuit institution affiliated to Bangalore University. It is one of a number of interrelated sister Institutions, including also St. Joseph's College of Commerce, the St. Joseph's Evening College, the St. Joseph's Boys' High School and the St. Joseph's Indian High School. The college was founded in 1882 by the Fathers of the French Foreign Mission, and on 1 June 1937 was handed over to the Society of Jesus, which has run it ever since. The stamp was issued to honor the school for its 127 years of service. More
INDIA, 1997, the centenary of the birth of Fr. Jerome D'Souza, SJ,
Scott 166
and its FDI cancel featuring the coat of arms of Loyola College, Chennai
When the life of Fr. Jerome D'Souza, SJ was celebrated with the above issue, included in the background of the stamp was the church of Loyola College in Chennai (formerly Madras), the Jesuit school where Fr. D'Souza had long worked. More
The Basilica of Bom Jesus & the Professed House, Goa
PORTUGUESE INDIA, 1931, from the Xavier
issue, Scott 418
the Jesuit
Basilica of Bom Jesus and next to it the former Professed House (Jesuit
residence)
PORTUGUESE INDIA, 1946, a postal card featuring the interior of the
Bom Gesu Church, H&G 42a
its stamp bears the image of St. John de Britto.
INDIA, 2002, special cancel for the 450th anniversary of Xavier's death
featuring the Jesuit secondary school in Jaipur, St. Xavier's
INDIA, 1985, the 125th anniversary of St.
Xavier's College in Kolkata, Scott 1087 and its FDI cancel
Fr. Henri Depelchin, SJ (1822-1900) came with an Anglo-Belgian group to Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1859 to start St. Xavier's College there. He had become its rector in 1864. By the end of his tenure in 1871 the school had 500 students, and Fr. Depelchin moved on to be rector at St. Xavier's in Mumbai. After a failed attempt to establish a mission in the Zambesi river valley in the 1880s he returned to spend the rest of his life back in India. Rabindranath Tagore, Jagadish Chandra Bose and Ramananda Chatterjee are counted among the alumni of St. Xavier's in Kolkata. More
St. Aloysius College, Mangalore
INDIA, January 12, 2001 — the day in 1880 that St. Aloysius College
began, Scott 1870,
and its FDI cancel featuring the College's coat of arms
St. Aloysius College Chapel in Mangalore is decorated by the paintings — frescoes, tempera and canvas panels — of an Italian Jesuit Brother Antonio Moscheni, done from 1899 to 1901. The above panel shows the early life of St. Aloysius, patron of youth, for whom the school is named. More
INDIA , 1994, the 125th anniversary of the founding
of St. Xavier's College, Mumbai (Bombay),
Scott 1513. More
The
Papal Seminary, Pune
SRI LANKA, 2005, 50th anniversary
of the National Seminary of Our Lady of Lanka,
the original home of the Papal Seminary at Pune, Scott 1519
INDIA, 1993, the centenary of the Papal Seminary at Pune, Scott 1465 and
its FDI cancel
Pope Leo XIII asked the Apostolic Delegate for India and Ceylon, Archbishop Ladislaus Zaleski, to establish a seminary for the training of priests in India. Zaleski entrusted the work to the Jesuits and to Fr. Sylvain Grosjean, SJ, one time Superior of the Jesuits' Bengal Mission. In 1893 the future Papal Seminary began in rented facilities in Ampitiya, Kandy, Sri Lanka, and moved to new and larger quarters in 1909. In 1926, teh same year the Seminary Chapel was completed, it was authorized by Rome to confer degrees in philosophy and theology. After Sri Lanka gained national independence, a decision was made to move the Seminary. In 1955, still under Jesuit auspices, it was transferred to Pune in India. The old buildings at Ampitiya, shown on the Sri Lankan stamp (above), became the National Seminary of Our Lady of Lanka entrusted to the Oblates for the training of Sri Lankan clergy. More
INDIA, 2009, Heritage Monuments Preservation issue, Scott 2308cSt. Ann's Church in Talaulim seems to be of Jesuit foundation. In 1577 a piece of land was offered to Jesuit priest was preaching in Talaulim and near-by Gualim-Moula, who began constructing a small chapel there, but had not decided which saint to dedicated it to. A villager, Bartolomeu Marchona, told the priest he had met a old woman with a hat and walking stick who claimed the church was hers and that she wished to stay there. A Brahmin woman dreamed at the same time of an old woman named Ana who wanted a place to stay. The Jesuit decided the old woman was St. Ann (Ana), mother of the Blessed Virgin, and dedicated the church to her. The church was extended by Msgr. Francisco de Rego from 1681 - 1689 and completed by Fr Antonio Francisco da Cunha in 1695. Because of the church, the locale today is often called Santana rather than Talaulim. More
Basilica of Our Lady of the Snows, Tuticorin
INDIA, 2007, the 425th anniversary of the church's dedication, and its FDI cancel, Scott 2227According to one tradition Francis Xavier had seen a statue of Our Lady of the Snows in Manila in a Convent of the Augustinian Sisters and had asked that it be sent to the newly converted Paravars of the Pearl Fishery Coast to be honored in place of the Hindu Goddesses they had once been attached to. The sisters at first declined, but after Xavier's death, they sent it on the ship Santalena which arrived in India on 9 June 1555. The Vicar General of the Goa Diocese, Michael Vaz, enshrined it in the Jesuit church of Saint Paul on Keracope Street in Thoothukudi, in the Diocese of Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu. On 5 August 1582 (the feast of Our Lady of the Snows) a new Jesuit church was dedicated by the Bishop of Cochin to house the statue. Dedicated first under the title of Our Lady of Mercy, because of the the miraculous statue, it came to be known as the Church of Our Lady of the Snows. In 1658 the Dutch captured Tuticorin, forced the Jesuits out, and in 1695 destroyed the church. Fr. Vigilius Mansi, SJ, who kept the miraculous statue in his possession, built the present structure in 1713. After the Suppression in 1773 priests from Goa diocese took charge of the church. When the Church was celebrating the 400th anniversary of the original dedication in 1582, Pope John Paul II raised it to the status of a Basilica. More
Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh
INDIA, 2003, special cancel for the College's 50th anniversary
and part of the design from the anniversary special cover
Because of a dearth of Catholic education in their area, the Catholic Bishops of the state of Andhra Pradesh on India's south eastern coast, and especially Bishop Ignatius Mummadi of the Guntur Diocese, requested the Jesuits to establish a college in Vijayawada, the third largest city of Andhra Pradesh. A group of Jesuits, led by Fr. Karnam Deviah, SJ, came to Vijayawada from the then Madurai Jesuit Province in Tamil Nadu, and thanks to generous local support established Andhra Loyola College on a 110-acre site in 1953. Classes began on July 22, 1954 with Fr. Theo Mathias, SJ, as the first Principal. The college was affiliated to Andhra University till December 1976 and to Nagarjuna University thereafter. Since then, Andhra Loyola College has occupied a premier position in higher education. In 1988, the college won autonomous status because of its contribution to education, and it has used this freedom to experiment and innovate. The college offers intermediate, degree, and post-graduate programs, with a broad-based and holistic undergraduate curriculum. More