Shamshabad Syro-Malabar Church Gets New Bishop
Hyderabad: The Syro-Malabar Church has appointed Mar Prince Antony Panengadan as bishop of the Shamshabad Eparchy. The outgoing Metropolitan Bishop, Mar Joseph Kollamparampil, who also served as the administrator of Shamshabad, welcomed the newly appointed bishop.
The members of the Permanent Synod and the Bishop of Palai Eparchy felicitated Bishop Panengadan in the presence of bishops attending the synod, as well as priests and religious members of the curia. The Syro-Malabar Church, which oversees around 20,000 Syro-Malabar Catholics in Telangana, mentioned that the date of the bishop’s installation will be announced later.
The appointment was made by Major Archbishop Mar Raphael Thattil during the ongoing third session of the 32nd Synod of Bishops of the Syro-Malabar Church, which began on August 19 at the Major Archiepiscopal Curia in Mount St Thomas, Kakkanad in Kochi, Kerala.
Bishop Antony Prince Panengadan was born on March 13, 1977, is the second son of P.J. Devassy and A.M. Kochuthressia. After completing his school education, he joined the CMI congregation but later transitioned to the Eparchy of Adilabad after his novitiate.
He completed his philosophical studies at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram, Bengaluru, and his theological studies at Ruhalaya, Ujjain. Ordained as a priest in April 2007, he later obtained a doctorate in Biblical Theology from the Pontifical Urbanian University in Rome. In 2015, he was appointed the second bishop of the Eparchy of Adilabad and was consecrated and installed as its bishop in October of that year. Bishop Panengadan is fluent in Malayalam, English, Telugu, Italian, and German.