Page:Vizagapatam.djvu/84

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VIZAGAPATAM.

of Cuttack, Ganjám, Vizagapatam and Gódávari) was formed. The present Bishop, the Right Rev. Dr. J. M. Clerc, was consecrated in 1891.

Besides the cathedral, a building of brick and chunam in the Gothic style dating from 1854, the mission possesses three churches in Vizagapatam town; namely, one in the fort, erected in 1887, one near the Waltair station, put up in 1903, and a third, the chapel of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, picturesquely placed on Ross Hill overlooking the mouth of the Upputéru and visible from almost every part of the town. This last was finished in 1877 and is a well-known place of pilgrimage. Other Roman Catholic churches in the district are those in the Vizianagram cantonment (built in 1882-83) and at Kottavalasa (1899), and the half-finished erection at Pálkonda; while in nine other villages chapels have been put up.

The European staff of the mission in the district consists of eighteen Priests and four Brothers. Sixteen of these twenty-two are stationed in Vizagapatam town, seven of them being employed in the mission's schools, which are referred to in more detail in Chapter X below. Some forty members of the Sister- hood of St. Joseph are also working in the various girls' schools. A small theological seminary is maintained at Vizagapatam and also an orphanage containing about fifty European boys. An orphanage for European girls was formerly kept up, but has now been moved — partly to Cuttack and partly to Cocanada.

The Schleswig-Holstein Lutheran Mission is a much more recent arrival than either of the foregoing, having begun work only in 1882.1[1] In that year its pioneers, the Revs. H. Bothmann and E. Pohl, began the foundations of a mission house at Koraput, but suffered so severely from fever that they abandoned the place in favour of Sálúr. Work at the latter town was begun in 1883. Koraput was re-occupied in 1885 and in the next five years beginnings were successively made at Jeypore, Kótápad, Naurangpur, Párvatípur and Gunupur. Seventeen European missionaries and five lady workers are now posted to these seven stations; there are churches at Sálúr, Párvatípur, Kótapád and Naurangpur; numerous out-stations have been established; the number of adherents is returned at over 7,000 already; theological seminaries have been opened at Kótapád and Párvatípur,a lower secondary school at Sálúr, leper asylums at that place (financed by the Edinburgh Mission to Lepers in India and the

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  1. 1 The notes which follow have been kindly furnished by the Revs. P. Schulze and J. Th. Timmcke.