St. Catherine Church Payyampally – A Painting

The St. Catherine Church in Payyampally is a catholic Syro Malabar Church under Mananthavady Diocese. Payyampally Parish was promoted to Forane somewhere around the year 2000 with the following 11 parish under it, including Payyampally parish

St. George, Appapara

St. Thomas, Arattuthara

St. Joseph, Bavali

Bl. Chavara Kuriakose, Edayoorkunnu

Little Flower, Kammana

St. Sebastian, Kartikulam

St. Martin, Martin Nagar(Ondayangadi)

St. Alphonsa, Padmala

St. Mary, Panavally

St. Catherine, Payyampally

St. George, Thrissilery

The church was established in the year of 1936 as per the diocese website http://www.diocesemdy.org/.

The above painting shows the Church building which was constructed somewhere in 1970~75. I was not even born then. I asked my mother (P. C Mary, retired teacher of St. Catherine’s Higher Secondary school) and came to know that prior to the construction of the church that you see in this painting, the church was functioning in another small building adjacent to the old parish house which is now in the verge of collapse. Even before that the church was functioning in the old lower primary school building of St. Catherine’s Higher Secondary School. The LP school building is destructed as it reached its age limit and a basketball court stands in the location as of now in 2012. A new two storey concrete building is constructed as the new lower primary wing of St. Catherine’s school.

The building that you see in the above painting is destructed recently (2011~2012) and a new church building construction is going on which is expected to be complete by 2012~2013. So I thought of recreating the memories of the old church building by painting it and as a tribute to all those who nurtured out from this Parish during the last 35 or 40 years.

Read more about St. Catherine’s Higher secondary school here ->St. Catherine's Higher Secondary School