By Matters India Reporter
Bengaluru: Retired Archbishop Kagithapu Mariadas of Visakhapatnam passed away on February 26 after a brief illness. He was 81.
The funeral is scheduled at 10 am on February 28 at St Peter’s Cathedral, Gnanapuram Visakhapatnam, a port city in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
The end came at around 2:30 pm at St Joseph’s Hospital, Visakhapatnam, where the prelate was admitted two months ago for treatment.
Archbishop Mariadas was born on September 7, 1936. In Gnanapuram. He was ordained in 1961 a priest in the Missionaries of St Francis de Sales or Fransalians.
Pope Paul VI appointed him the fourth bishop of Guntur in 1974. In 1982, he was transferred to Visakhapatnam and in 2001, he was appointed as archbishop when the diocese was raised an archdiocese.
Before becoming a prelate, he was a professor at St. Peter’s Seminary in Bangalore.
On July 3, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI accepted his resignation. He is a priest for 56 years and a bishop for 40 years, says a press statement from the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India.
For past five years he was staying at Jubilee Home in Visakhapatnam.