By Purushottam Nayak
Balasore, May 11, 2023: Pope Francis has appointed an Indian prelate serving Ethiopia in East Africa as the new bishop of Balasore diocese in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.
The Vatican on May 10 announced the appointment of Monsignor Varghese Thottamkara, a member of the Congregation of the Missions. The 64-year-old prelate is currently serving as the vicar apostolic of Nekemte in Ethiopia.
The diocese of Balasore was lying vacant after Bishop Simon Kaipuram died of a massive heart attack on April 22, 2019. Father Isaac Puthenangady is the current administrator of the diocese.
“Getting a new bishop is good news for the diocese of Balasore,” says Father Jadu Marandi, former vicar general of Balasore. He told Matters India that they diocese has been waiting for a shepherd for the past four years.
Bishop Thottamkara was born on May 23, 1960, at Thottuva under the Ernakulam-Angamaly Syro Malabar Archdiocese in the southern Indian state of Kerala. After matriculation at G V H School, Koovapady, he joined the Congregation of the Mission’s minor seminary in Gopalpur in July 1976.
He was ordained a priest on January 6, 1987, at his home parish, St. Joseph’s Church, Thottuva, by Cardinal Antony Padiyara. He began his priestly ministry as the assistant pastor of Muniguda, a town in Odisha’s Rayagada district.
He holds a licentiate in moral theology. He was the assistant pastor and hostel warden of Christnagar (Allada) during 1988-1990. In 1990, he was sent to Ethiopia to teach in the minor seminary at Ambo managed by the Vincentians of Ethiopia. In 1992 he served as a visiting professor at the major seminary at Addis Ababa.
The following year, he was transferred to Addis Ababa as the first rector of St. Paul’s Major Seminary of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nekemte.
He also served as the judicial vicar of the vicariates of Southern Ethiopia. In 1997 was appointed rector of the Vincentian Major Seminary at Addis Ababa. In 2003, he was elected assistant provincial of the Southern Indian province and in 2004 he was appointed rector and superior of St. Vincent’s Mission House, Aluva, Kerala.
The Vincentian superior general appointed him procurator general both his congregation as well as the Daughters of Charity. He was also the archivist at the general curia in 2005.
In 2010, he was elected as an assistant general of the congregation and was given the responsibility of assistant for the missions and delegate to the provinces and International Missions of Asia Pacific Zone.
On 28 June 2013, he was appointed the coadjutor bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nekemte. His episcopal ordination was on August 13, 2013.