Metropolitan Mar Bernabas Mathews Enters Eternal Rest

H.E Mathews Mar Bernabas

Kottayam (Kerala, India): Former metropolitan of the Northeast American Diocese of the Indian Orthodox Church, H.E Mathews Mar Bernabas, has died in the Pushpagiri hospital in Kerala on Sunday, December 09, 2012. He was 88.

H.E. Mathews Mar Barnabas (K K Mathews) was born at Vengola in the ditrict of Ernakulam in Kerala,on August 9, 1924. He studied Biology at Madras Christian College and while he served the parish in Secunderabad he did his masters in Botany in Osmania University, India.
In 1951 Metropolitan Augen Mar Thimotheos (His Holiness Catholicos Baselios Augen I), ordained him to the priesthood. H.H. Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews I consecrated him as a bishop and appointed as assistant bishop of the Ankamali and Kottayam Dioceses on May 15, 1978. In 1982 he was appointed as the metropolitan of the newly formed Idikki Diocese. In 1992, H.E. Mathews Mar Barnabas was appointed the diocesan metropolitan for American Diocese.
On January 18, 2011, His Holiness Baselius Mar Thoma Paulose II, the Catholicos of The East, accepted H.E. Mathews Mar Barnabas' request to be relieved from administrative responsibilities as diocesan metropolitan of the Northeast American Diocese.