page_title: Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah
section_title: Ministry
hierarchical_section_title: Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah / Ministry
caption_attribution_description: English: Ephiphany Cathedral Dornakal Diocese, Dornakal, Andhra Pradesh, India
context_page_description: Bishop Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah was an Indian evangelist and the first Indian bishop in the churches of the Anglican Communion, serving as the first bishop of the diocese of Dornakal. A pioneer of Christian ecumenism in India, Azariah had a complex relationship with Mahatma Gandhi, who at least once called him postcolonial Indians' "Enemy Number One."
context_section_description: In 1909, at age 35, Azariah was ordained as an Anglican priest, left his positions with the YMCA, learned Telugu and began as a missionary in Dornakal. That mission has been started by the Indian Missionary Society of Tinnevelly, and Rev. Azariah continued to speak widely on the need for indigenisation, including at the 1910 World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh.
  On 29 December 1912, after three years as a priest, Azariah was consecrated the first Bishop of the new Diocese of Dornakal in St. Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta. Missionary Dr. J. R. Mott, present on the occasion, called it one of the most impressive ceremonies he ever witnessed. Eleven Bishops of the Province of India took part in the act of Consecration, which made Rt.Rev. Azariah the first Indian to be consecrated a Bishop of the Anglican Communion. Indians from all parts, and especially from the new Bishop's own country of Tinnevelly, attended in large numbers to honour their distinguished brother. Canon Edward Sell's sermon on that occasion was soon published and remains available.
  The Diocese of Dornakal, initially small, grew during Bishop Azariah's episcopate. Initially comprising the south-east corner of the Nizam's Dominions in Hyderabad, it soon added the District of Dummagudem, where the Church Missionary Society (CMS) worked. In 1920, the Episcopal Synod resolved that all the areas in which either the low-church CMS or the high church Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) evangelized in the Telugu country would become part of this diocese, transforming it into one of the largest (in terms of numbers of Christians) in India. Thus were added the watersheds of the Kistna and Godavery rivers; parts of the Kurnool and Cuddapah districts evangelized by the SPG, as well as the areas in the Hyderabad State served by missionaries of the Indian Missionary Society of Tinnevelly, the Singareni Mission, the Khammamett Mission (formerly under the Church Missionary Society), and the newly formed Dornakal Diocesan Mission (to the Mulag Taluq). Soon, the new bishop started raising funds and designing a cathedral to reflect his dioceses' multiple ethnic and cultural traditions(merging Muslim, Hindu and Christian architectural elements), which was finally completed and consecrated in 1936 as Epiphany Cathedral.
  Bishop Azariah lived for a time in a tent near his new cathedral, but spent most of his episcopate traveling across his vast diocese by bullock cart or bicycle, usually accompanied by his wife and coworker, Anbu. His village sermons often attacked "the four demons – Dirt, Disease, Debt, and Drink." He proved the most successful leader of grassroots conversions to Christianity in South Asia during the early twentieth century. Known by the affectionate honorific Thandrigaru ("father"), Azariah inspired mass movements that brought roughly 200,000 outcast Malas and Madigas, tribals and low-caste non-Brahmins into his fledgling church. He also established a school to educate girls, later renamed for him. By 1924, the Diocese of Dornakal had 8 English-born priests and 53 Indian clergy. By 1935, his diocese had 250 ordained Indian clergy and over 2,000 village teachers, plus medical clinics, cooperative societies, and printing presses.
  The bishop became both an ally and leading foe of M.K. Gandhi during battles over communal representation and religious freedom. While also an Indian nationalist, Azariah believed Hinduism inherently repressive and grounded in a destructive caste system. On the other hand, Gandhi saw conversions to Christianity as a threat.
  Bishop Azariah also believed the Church's mission should express its unity, and thus continued to take a leading role in negotiating to reunite Protestant Christian missions in India. For many years Azariah served as chairman of the National Christian Council of India, Burma and Ceylon.
  Rt. Rev. Azariah became the first, and remained the only native Indian bishop of an Anglican diocese from 1912 until his death in 1945. In 1920, Cambridge University awarded him an honorary degree. As both an effective evang
caption: Ephiphany Cathedral, Dornakal, visioned and built by Rt. Rev. V. S. Azariah
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