1855–1872

Fr Joseph Grégoire, apostle of Vadakkankulam

For some seventeen patient years the work was driven by Fr Joseph Grégoire SJ, the man who gave this community a church one historian called "probably without equal in the world." It is his Jesuit chronicler Auguste Jean, and he alone, who calls him "the apostle of Vadakenkoulam." The Jesuit lay-brother Joseph Bergenthal engineered its twenty-four self-supporting arches, turned in lime and palm-toddy mortar without cement, iron, or a single wooden beam to hold them.

DocumentedThis moment rests on 4 sources.

Auguste Jean 1894p. 474

Né en 1815, à Valence en Dauphiné, il entra dans la Compagnie le 28 juin 1840, et arriva au Ma- duré le er i septembre 1843. Il travailla surtout dans le district du sud, qu'il gouverna de 1849 à 1852. Il administra ensuite, jusqu'en 1863, la chrétienté de Vadakenkoulam. Il y revint encore en 1867, après avoir rempli divers emplois dans le nord, et y passa les dernières années de sa vie. Le P. Joseph Grégoire fut donc surtout l'apôtre de Vadakenkoulajn. C'est à sa persévérante énergie prin- cipalement que cette belle chrétienté est redevable de sa grande église. Ce que la construction de ce sanctuaire lui coûta de soucis et de fatigues, Dieu seul le sait. Mais .une peine bien plus sensibl

474

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In English

"Fr Joseph Grégoire was therefore above all the apostle of Vadakenkoulam. It is chiefly to his persevering energy that this fine Christian community owes its great church."

What this source establishes

"The apostle of Vadakenkoulam" — and it is ONE chronicler who says it, not several. Auguste Jean, p.446. The same man supplies "probably without equal in the world"; Dessal's independent hedge is weaker ("unique in the world, perhaps").