Kochi: Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, noted Catholic theologian and archbishop of New York, will be the main speaker at the memorial for Aboon Geevarghese Mar Ivanios, founder of the Syro-Malankara Church.

Cardinal Dolan arrived in Kerala on July 13 on a three day visit to the southern Indian state. During his stay, the 66-year-old prelate will attend various programs organized by Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara Churches in Kerala.

On July 13 morning the American prelate met with Cardinal George Alencherry, head of the Syro-Malabar Church, at the Archbishop’s Residence. He visited St George Church, Edappally, a suburb of Kochi, and later the Basilica of Our Lady of Ransom in Vallarpadam.

The cardinal, who is the chairperson of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, a papal agency for humanitarian and pastoral support, met with its India staff at its office in Mount St Thomas, Kakkanad, which is also the headquarters of the Syro-Malabar Church.

The cardinal’s main program in India is to deliver the keynote address at the memorial for Archbishop Mar Ivanios on July 14 at Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala. He will lead the services to mark the 63rd death anniversary of prelate, who is now a Servant God. He will join a candlelight procession July 14 and the main celebrations the following day.

He will also attend programs in Marthandam, a town in neighboring Tamil Nadu.

Cardinal Dolan has headed New York archdiocese since 2009. He served the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2010 to 2013. Pope Benedict XVI made him a cardinal in 2012.

Archbishop Ivanios (born September 21, 1882, as Geevarghese Panickeruveetil) was the first Metropolitan Archbishop of Trivandrum and founder of the Reunion Movement in the Malankara Apostolic Church.

He is the founder of Bethany Ashram order of monks and Bethany Order Of Nuns. He also served as the principal of the Kottayam M.D seminary High School and as a professor at the Serampore College, West Bengal.

On September 20, 1930, Mar Ivanios and a group of priests of the Order of the Imitation of Christ made the Catholic profession of faith before Bishop Aloysius Maria Benziger of Quilon.

Many members of both the Bethany orders also joined the Catholic Church and Rome a new ritual Church for them, the Syro Malankara Catholic Church. He died on July 15, 1953, and was buried inside St. Mary’s Cathedral, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram.