Had been to this church
recently and I
was just stumped by the lavishness with which it was built.
I am talking about the St George church at Edappally
Kerala.
Later on, I was told
that the total
cost for building the church was somewhere between 35 crores and 50 crores (Rupees)
I was just wondering about the source of the money.
Obviously it has not come from thin air. Are the parishioners so rich? Then I started hearing stories.
An auto rickshaw driver of this parish wanted a date
to be fixed for his first born child to be baptized. The vicar refused to baptize
the child unless he cleared his dues of Rs 35000/- for the rebuilding of the
church. The helpless man mortgaged his auto rickshaw, paid Rs 30000/- to the church and got his
child baptized.
Also heard that the "fees" for getting married in this church is Rs one lakh.
There may be many parishioners who may be finding it
difficult to make both ends meet, but are coerced to contribute for this “big
church” (there are two other churches already
standing in the same compound)
the original church dated AD 593
So it’s a case of big, bigger, biggest.
The Malayalam daily Mangalam says it has a height of
146 feet covering an area of 85114 square feet and adds “instead of making it a
place of peaceful worship, they made it an eye-popping posh architectural
extravaganza”
While I sat in the church I was reminded of the black and white drawing in the Old Testament (it was our text book for the catechism class in school)
I was hoping that Jesus would appear once more and do something similar to chase away all the people
responsible for this blunder.
The things people do in the name of religion.
