Thiruvananthapuram: Mother Eliswa Vakayil, considered the first nun in the history of the Kerala Catholic Church, is remembered for empowering women and building Kerala’s first convent. She will be declared ‘blessed’ Saturday, over 100 years after her death.
Eliswa Vakayil founded India’s first indigenous Carmelite community for women—the Third Order Carmelites. This community later became known as the Teresian Carmelite Sisters.
The event is the result of years of work by the Kerala Catholic Church, which began studying and spreading the story of Mother Eliswa in the early 2000s.
The declaration will be a public event at the Basilica of Our Lady of Ransom at Vallarpadam, Ernakulam, Saturday evening. Several functionaries of the National Catholic Bishops’ Council will attend.
Cardinal Sebastian Francis, the current Bishop of Penang, Malaysia, deputed by Pope Leo XIV, will preside over the event.
The event will start with the reading of an apostolic letter on the Papal delegate’s declaration. After that, a statue of Mother Eliswa Vakayil will be unveiled, along with hymns of praise. A relic of the nun will also be placed in the church.
Functionaries of the Archdiocese of Verapoly told ThePrint that the relics were collected from the tomb of Mother Eliswa Vakayil in July this year. The relics— collected in the presence of bishops and other church staff—were later sent to Vatican City for verification.
“In the 19th century, nobody was thinking about women’s education. The general perception also confined women. So starting a convent made many girls venture out of their homes. It became a doorway for women’s entry to public and religious life and education,” Sister Sucy Kinattingal told ThePrint. Many devotees had been demanding the declaration for many years, Sister Sucy added.
‘Blessed’ Mother Eliswa Vakayil
With the Saturday event, the nun will be a step closer to ‘canonisation’. The process leading to the declaration of sainthood based on a deceased person’s life, heroic virtues, and miracles, is known as ‘canonisation’ in Christianity.
The process begins at the local level, where the bishop announces a person as a ‘servant of god’. Later, a thorough probe examines whether the person lived a heroic life or was a martyr for upholding their faith. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, a department of the Roman Curia, further checks the incidents. If verified, the person is declared ‘venerable’.
For non-martyrs, there needs to be at least one miracle associated with them, occurring after the person’s death. Then, the person is ‘beatified’, meaning they are declared ‘blessed’. Then, the person is venerated in a limited diocese. If a second miracle is verified for a non-martyr, they can be canonised as a ‘saint’, allowing for universal veneration by the entire church.
Sister Sucy said the Catholic Church began its study into Mother Eliswa Vakayil’s contributions as early as 2000. It published books and organised symposiums and seminars on her work. In 2007, the church formally sent a letter to the Vatican to request the ‘beatification’ of Eliswa, along with her biography and other documents.
In response, Mother Eliswa Vakayil was declared a ‘servant of god’ in May 2008 by Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil of the Verapoly Archdiocese and ‘venerable’ on 8 November 2023 by Pope Francis. In April 2025, the Pope recognised a miracle attributed to her intercession.
Verapoly Church director Rev. Fr. Yesudas Pazhampilly said the miracle involves the healing of a child diagnosed with an incurable issue during the mother’s pregnancy. The church, however, said it cannot reveal more details.
Church records show Eliswa Vakayil was born on 15 October 1831. She was one of eight children born to her parents in Kochi’s suburbs—Varapuzha. She was widowed at the age of 20. Church documents convey her interest in consecrating her life to religion.
She, along with her sister and daughter, joined the Carmelite Order in 1866. Later, the three nuns founded Kerala’s first convent in Koonammavu. This became the Community of Teresian Carmelites (CTC).
She passed away on 18 July 1911. The church buried her in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Mount Carmel & St Joseph in Varapuzha near Kochi. Her mortal remains were later transferred to the tomb chapel, Smruthi Mandhiram, St. Joseph’s Convent, Varapuzha.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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