Expert on “Khrist Bhakta” Movement dies of heart attack

By Matters India Reporter

Varanasi: Father Jerome Gyanprakash Sylvester, a member of the Indian Missionary Society and an expert on the Khrist Bhakta (Devotee of Christ) Movement of Varanasi, died October 27 following a massive heart attack. He was 58.

“He complained of chest pain this morning. He reached a clinic for checkup and died there due to a massive heart attack,” Indian Missionary Society Father Anand Mathew told Matters India on October 27.

The funeral will be at 2:30 pm on October 28, Father Mathew added.

At the time of his death, Father Sylvester was serving as the Dean of Studies of the Varanasi-based Gyan Bharati, the contextual theological college of the congregation.

He was born February 21, 1962 at Finger Point, Ootty in Nilgiris of Tamil Nadu. He entered the Indian Missionary Society in 1980 and made the first profession in 1983.

He studied philosophy in Varanasi’s Vishwa Jyoti Gurukul and theology at St Paul’s Seminary in Tamil Nadu’s Trichy. He was ordained a priest on April 29, 1992.

He then worked in Varanasi and Madurai as a missionary before going to Belgium to do Masters in theology. He did his doctorate in theology in Madras University.

Father Sylvester did research on the socioreligio and political aspects of the Khrist Bhakta movement of non-baptized devotees of Christ and became an expert in the subject, Father Mathew explained.

The spiritual movement began as the result of the indigenous congregation’s evangelization work in Varanasi, a holy city of Hinduism in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

It is the result of the Satsangs (prayer meetings) held at the Matridham Ashram (Abode of the Mother) of the congregation in Varanasi in 1993-1994.

The Khrist Bhaktas believe in Christ but do not receive baptism to avoid social and family problems. They throng the Catholic ashram, especially during the Holy Week, to participate in various services and express their faith and commitment to the Gospel values.

The community, constituted by Dalits and Other Backward Classes, are 85 percent women and are found mostly in the villages of the Banaras (Varanasi) region. The Matridham Ashram, which was opened in 1970s, is the movement’s geographical locus.

The ashram has become a center of indigenizing Indian Catholicism and serves as an influential node in the charismatic Catholic movement in northern India.

People such as Father Sylvester said the Khrist Bhaktas arose out of the historic encounters between Hindus and Christians in South Asia over the past two millennia.

The Khrist Bhaktas are interpreted as a hybrid community constituted by the coalescing of Hindu bhakti (devotion), popular or vernacular Hinduism, and charismatic Catholicism.

Each of these religious modes is explored in detail, by recourse to religious history, Hindu and Christian scriptures and theology, and social theory. The Khrist Bhaktas embody the community’s status as “in-between” Catholics and Hindus.