The tomb of His Grace Dr. Thomas Mar Makarios, first Metropolitan of the American Diocese, and former Metropolitan of the U. K., Canada & Europe Diocese has been erected at the Catholicate Palace, Devalokam, Kerala, India.
Metropolitan Dr. Thomas Mar Makarios passed away on February 23, 2008 as a result of a tragic car accident in early January 2008 during his Arch pastoral visit to his diocese in the United Kingdom.
May the memory of our venerable Father in Christ be eternal!
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Missionary works in North America was a dream for Late lamented Metropolitan Dr. Thomas Mar Makarios of Malankara Orthodox Church. Both the president and secretary revealed that more charitable and missionary activities by the foundation will be launched shortly.
Those who are interested to associate with this foundation please email at pullelil@gmail.com for more information
It started out rainy and dismal, but by the time the unveiling of the sculpture for the late Bishop Thomas Mar Makarios, the day was just as warm, bright and sunny as the Bishop’s manner had been. It was as if the Bishop himself was looking down from above at the more than 200 people from all over the United States and Canada who were gathered at Alma College, Michigan, in his honor on Saturday, May 16, 2009.
Created by Michigan artist Mark Chatterley, the amazing and beautiful sculpture depicts a figure with winged arms raised. It looks at once traditional and futuristic. Palms are in prayer and the wings are actually made up of figures that get progressively smaller. The statue is one of only two statues in the Midwest dedicated to leaders from India – the other is to Mohandas Gandhi in Milwaukee.
"Untitled" sculpture by Mark Chatterley in memory of Bishop Thomas Makarios
The sculpture has been installed in a public area in the middle of the Alma College campus, with ample lighting for evening visiting. Benches have been placed facing the sculpture to sit and meditate. The sculpture installation was not the only legacy of Bishop Makarios established; perhaps the most visible. The Bishop Dr. Thomas Mar Makarios Scholarship Fund has been established to honor his teaching at Alma College. For more information, please call the Advancement Office 1-800-291-1312
People of all ages, religions and ethnic groups attended the event, which featured a bagpipe prelude by Alma College piper and student Alyse Redman and Malankara Orthodox memorial prayers for the late Bishop. The bagpipes honored the Scottish heritage of Alma College, while the memorial service introduced non-Orthodox audience members to the particular beauty and ceremony that is Oriental Orthodoxy.
A recent graduate of Alma College, Ann Armbuster, performed a cello solo from Handel’s Xerxes. Dr. Ron Massanari, a professor of religion at Alma and colleague of the Bishop, spoke tenderly about his love for the Bishop, choking up with tears on a couple of occasions. Presbyterian Chaplain Carol Gregg gave an opening invocation and Reverend Jesse Perry, a Baptist minister, said he was honored to give the benediction.
The Bishop’s brother and Malankara priest Fr. Lazarus spoke from the heart as a brother, as an Orthodox priest of the Malankara Church and as a proud Indian living in North America. Dr. Anirudhan of FOKANA, a national organization for those from Kerala, India, intended on being present. He was delayed and so sent his speech to be shared at the dedication. Alma College president, Sandra Tracy, read his eloquent address. It was clear from listening to the speakers what an incredible impact the Bishop had made on each of their lives.
Half a dozen Orthodox priests shared in the memorial prayers in English, led by Fr Lazarus (Toronto). The other priests were Fr Johnson Corepiscopa (Philadelphia), Fr Daniel (Chicago), Fr Philip (Detroit), Fr John Brian (Wisconsin), and Fr Cyril (New York). Fr Joy (Florida) and Deacon Shaun Mathew from the seminary in Kottayam (and Detroit), also assisted.
There were over 100 Orthodox Christians, mostly of Indian heritage, present. A very large contingency of those were young people, many of whom knew Bishop Makarios personally. They came from all directions to the small college town in the middle of Michigan, including a busload from Chicago, carloads from Detroit, Toronto and other U.S. cities. Some flew, driving in from airports miles away. A couple drove around Lake Michigan from the mission in Madison, Wisconsin. At least one could walk. Renu Paul, the late Bishop’s personal secretary at the college and a member of the Malankara Orthodox Church finishing up her work in Alma, was one of the main organizers of the event. After the event, she said, “God is good. God is good.”
The Bishop was known for his ecumenical and interfaith work, and efforts to bring respect and understanding between people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds as ambassador for the Orthodox Christian Church and for India; as a professor of religious studies at Alma College; as founder of the Mission Society of St. Gregorios of India for mission work among Americans. His life touched so many, and in his death, in spirit, he continued to bring a variety of people together for a common cause. This was evident at the sculpture dedication and memorial ceremony in a small college town in the middle of Michigan.
Five of the Achens present (L to R priests only): Fr Cyril -New York, Fr Philip Detroit, Fr Daniel - Chicago, Chorepiscopa Johnson - Philadelphia, Fr John Brian Madison, Wisconsin.
Clergy with College President (L to R): Fr Joy - Florida, Fr Philip - Detroit, Fr Cyril - New York, Fr Daniel -Chicago, Rembanachen Lazarus -Toronto, sculpture, Ms Saundra Tracy Alma College President, Chorepiscopa Johnson - Philadelphia, Fr John Brian - Madison Wisconsin, Deacon Shaun Mathews – Detroit.
Teresa Kochamma from Wisconsin summed up after the ceremony. “It IS a beautiful statue and it celebrates a beautiful man....”
Looking for the bishop, I thought I almost saw him in the alpenglow of a harvest moon, in a hedge bursting with buds no bigger than a child’s fingerprints, in a neighbor’s plastic pinwheel spinning clockwise in the wind. I thought I saw him in tiny grains of hope, in a woman brushing the hair from a sullen boy’s face, in the balm of sudden healing from shredded clouds racing from the stars. The bishop is will-of-a-wisp, a puff of breeze, more hopeful in his flowing red gown than any figure I know. He walks by my window on his daily sojourns, emerging from the hidden chambers of peace and clarity to sustain me in surprising ways, a figure so out of character with this part of central Michigan as to be laughable, lovable and mysterious all at once. His hood shrouds his head like an oddly draped flower, announcing his presence before you notice the thin, small body sheathed in flowing folds. I have never seen his hair. The bishop is Eastern Indian, with a triton beard and long delicate fingers that taper off like the hands in a Byzantine painting. He is doubly, triply strange for all that, a man visiting from another world yet a part of this one, more vivid because of this. No one can quite tell me how he has come to be here, but would any reason make his presence less mysterious?
I see him walking everywhere in this small town, taking the night air upon an evening, the hems of his robe swirling in gentle eddies around his slippered feet. A part of me wants to follow him or fit inside one of his pockets like a bright polished key. I would take up residence in his flowering hood, become his watch tower, his bird’s eye view, or hunker down where the clean folds of his robe billow out into forgetfulness, the ripple of a fresh, gentle wind. I want to walk the way he does, watchful and alert, more incongruent here than a rare plumaged bird whose colors remain unbesmirched by the drabness of winter. He is the cardinal bird that could make all the difference, burning his sacred red feathers in a slow fire that will never die out. He walks by my house sometimes, and each time my heart gets a little lighter, clearer, opening a tiny door that feels like a frail hope ascending until I realize I am supposed to notice him, take his example to heart, follow his lead, and become pure, vivid color in a land of black and white. What do I know about him? Nothing I don’t see in his thoughtful gait, the alert owl look in his dark brown eyes. Nothing he does not already show me though he does not know it, a simple long walk, the veil of a consciousness he gives me each time I see him. I need his walk like a covert response to things that make me uneasy, to the vague malaise dripping like a bad faucet at the heart of town, the malice of revved-up pickup trucks, gun racks; the bishop shows me how to live here in subtle, surprising ways, how to walk in a small town and the kind of grace I ached for without realizing it, his long red robe and careful steps over patches of ice.
You could go a long time without an example like the bishop, twenty, thirty years, a whole life. You could ignore people or signs like him, not take them into your heart or let them peel it open layer by precious layer. You could choose to close the curtains or drapes, lock the door and turn up the TV, but if the bishop should ever walk by your window or down your neighborhood street, you could have the opportunity to sense the hushed lightness trailing behind him, the seed-blossoms of his robes riding the air to find a place to plant themselves and take up growing. You could work the bishop walking by into any belief system you have, into the words of a prayer undirected to any god, into a chant for hope and brightness, a candle flame flickering in your cupped hands. You could use the bishop however you like, to get over sadness or death, or loneliness that drops like a single stone into a dark well, to imagine your life past the threshold where you are who you have always intended to be, that upright person in the mirror without longing or shame. But you must be careful with him, handle him as you would a porcelain jar that contains all the secret and dangerous ingredients of spring, or the fragrance of a night you do not want to forget. His presence is careful and oh-so-delicate, because he comes sparingly and when you least expect it, like all good surprises.
I hear his name mentioned sometimes around the Alma campus, the bishop is leaving for Brazil, the bishop is going back to India for a spell, the bishop is flying to New York. Sometimes he sits by himself in the faculty dining area, arrayed in his exotic uniform, serene and staring out the window. I’ve seen him eat hard-boiled eggs as if the earth’s ovals were at home in his mouth, a beneficent and cosmic gape. I don’t particularly want to know the minutiae of his life, the name of his native village, his conversion to the Orthodox church long ago, the demands of his office. I smile when I see him and he smiles back, we chat about the weather, his courses. Maybe some time we will go into things more deeply, but it doesn’t seem to matter much. What’s important is that he’s here, that I have the chance to see him. He need not even know how important he has become. Maybe some day I will tell him how much his odd presence means to me, how it has gained its own quiet and hopeful momentum, that I was hardly aware of it myself before this, that his walking is simple grace and nothing more. Does he need to know this now or ever? Would it violate a pact no one can see or understand?
Stranger, we have met and touched briefly in a land far away from home, and the brief exchanges have sustained me. The unknown distance between us spools out into the infinite, and we fill it with hope like bright, clear water dripping from the eaves. You are not of this place; I am not of this place. Together and separately, we part the invisible waters of our destinies and notice how a bird alights on a slender branch. We are far away from home. We have forgotten what home is. You travel to every corner of the earth and the taste and memory of it all reel by in a kaleidoscope of human touches and voices, people reaching out to you, and I know this same kind of ministry happens right here, right now, adding to the same continuum where nothing is lost and everything merges into one.
Seeing you disappear down the street or around the corner does not frighten me; death itself after you have departed does not frighten me. I have nothing to run from in your presence. After you leave and pick up your mail the ache throbbing in me since I first knew consciousness subsides a little, becomes bearable, becomes my dear friend. I believe in the invisible when I see you, I believe in the unseen net that catches me everywhere I go, the same frail net held up by threadbare strings so few and precious and strong I dare not dwell on them for long. You remind me, bishop, that I could be catapulted from this very chair right now to another part of the world by catastrophe or loss, that I could lose everything in a fire or flood, that I someday will lose it all anyway, the ring of laughter, the memory of love in strange rooms, that the people I care about will leave me behind, that I will leave them knowingly and unknowingly, that I will only see many of them just four or five times more, that what’s put in motion cannot be stopped, must be played out, that I, like you, will continue this strange wandering for the rest of my life, that I’m finally ready for this, at least on my good days, that I can never quite trust human permanence again, that that’s how it is, a mystery, a slow-moving prayer. Maybe you have known this all along. Maybe it is only this you have intended to show me. But intentional or not, more and more each day I wake with a sense of wonder, telling myself and believing it that anything is possible today, good and bad, that I will notice both and try my best to love them in their open or secret surprise.
I used to think human intimacy was a matter of deep disclosures, physical contact, constant presence; but I no longer believe this. Now I think it can happen any time, any where, in seeing a brightly robed bishop from another part of the world taking a stroll, hands folded behind his back, noting the beauty around him. I need hope incarnate like him, I need to glimpse his example more than once in a while. I need to fall in lockstep behind him, not because he is Christian or a bishop but because he changes the molecules of the air into something reverent, mysterious and faintly humorous, as if God himself truly is playing a joke on us, not a knee-slapper, but some kind of gentle benediction that gives us the capacity to smile. I greet him when I see him, and he is always pleased and surprised, and I am always pleased and surprised. Wonder works this way, in sudden, inexplicable meetings. Hello, bishop, hello. Each time I see you I greet you without words, thankful that you are here, thankful that I’ll always have your example in the back of my mind, that grace never disappears, that it’s subtle and clean like washed sheets on a line, that it lives in the manifold openings and unfoldings of things coming to life and curving themselves to the sun. I need you more than I can say, but now I know it is not you yourself I need really, but something inside you that beckons me to follow. Hello, bishop. If I never see you again, I will continue to look for you anyway in anything that is vivid and real, in darting sparrows, broken glass, the people I come into contact with who wail and laugh and cry without opening their mouths.
The memory and spiritual ideals of the late Bishop Thomas Mar Makarios remain alive in a figurative sculpture that was unveiled and dedicated May 16 at Alma College, the American institution he faithfully served for 25 years. “Makarios means blessed, and today is a blessed day as we celebrate the life of Bishop Thomas Makarios,” said Father Lazarus, church priest and the Bishop’s brother as he welcomed a crowd of approximately 150 people to the dedication ceremony, many of whom drove long distances to view the sculpture and share memories of their former family member, spiritual leader, teacher, colleague and friend.
Father Lazarus
The Bishop was a prelate of the Malankara Orthodox Church of India. He was founder of the American Diocese and the first Metropolitan Bishop of Canada, UK and Europe, and South Africa. He began teaching at Alma College in 1983, launching a 25-year association as professor of religious studies, committed to introducing students to differences between Eastern and Western modes of religious thinking.
President Saundra Tracy
“Alma College provided a nest for him as he worked tirelessly to build a foundation for his church in the Western world,” said Father Lazarus. “Every day he reached into the hearts and souls of millions of people from Alma College. He taught us to love and respect others, regardless of race and gender. “He had a passion to teach, and he left an impression on his students,” he said. “He was a father figure to them and enjoyed the time he spent with them. He loved Alma College dearly and was a goodwill ambassador for Alma College.”
The Orthodox Memorial Prayer
The ceremony included an orthodox memorial prayer led by Father Lazarus and comments by Michigan artist Mark Chatterley, who was commissioned to create the sculpture following the Bishop’s death in February 2008. The 13-foot high clay sculpture cast in bronze depicts a central figure with wings standing, arms raised and palms together in a prayerful gesture. The wings, at close inspection, are made up of figures that get progressively smaller. The sculpture is located at the center of the Alma College campus along a sidewalk amidst a grove of evergreen trees.
Church leaders, friends and colleagues
“This beautiful work of art provides a fitting and enduring reminder of the Bishop’s legacy at Alma College, in his beloved church, and in the world religious community,” said Alma College President Saundra Tracy. The ceremony also included comments that were read from a letter sent by Dr. Madhavan Anirudhan, a representative of the Kerala, India, community in the United States. Bishop Makarios helped develop the Alma India Program, which has a relationship with the Mathen Mappilai Memorial Public School in the village of Ayroor in the state of Kerala. Many Alma students have performed volunteer work at the school over the years.
Alma College will unveil a figurative sculpture that represents the spiritual ideals of the late Bishop Thomas Makarios during a dedication ceremony at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 16 on McIntyre Mall. Bishop Makarios was a much-beloved professor of religious studies at Alma College who passed away in February 2008. In his 25 years at Alma, he introduced students to Indian philosophy and culture and helped develop the Alma India Program, which has a relationship with the Mathen Mappilai Memorial Public School in the village of Ayroor in the state of Kerala. Many Alma students have performed volunteer work at the school over the years. In addition, the Bishop was founder and leader of the U.S.-Canada Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Church of India. His flowing red robes made him a well-recognized and distinguished presence on campus.
Bishop Thomas Makarios
Following his passing, a campus committee selected Williamston artist Mark Chatterley to create a campus sculpture that memorializes the Bishop’s impact on the faculty and students of Alma College. “Mark Chatterley’s figures have a very timeless, universal feeling to them,” says Carrie Parks-Kirby, faculty artist and committee member. “Even though he never knew or met the Bishop, he took our descriptions and came up with a sculpture that is very fitting and descriptive of our former friend and colleague.” The sculpture depicts a central figure with wings standing, arms raised and palms together in a prayerful gesture. The wings, at close inspection, are made up of figures that get progressively smaller. “This beautiful work of art provides a fitting and enduring reminder of the Bishop’s legacy at Alma College, in his beloved church, and in the world religious community,” says Alma President Saundra Tracy. “It’s a beautiful image for a leader of a church and teacher who impacted so many individuals,” says Parks-Kirby. “The sculpture is not a likeness of the Bishop but represents his spiritual wisdom, love and leadership of the people around him.” The clay sculpture cast in bronze will be located at the center of campus along a sidewalk amidst a grove of evergreen trees. All are welcome to attend the dedication.