Saint of Our Parish
A nobleman and soldier of Travancore who was baptised at our parish font and gave his life for Christ. In 2022 he became the first Catholic layman of Indian birth raised to the altars — and our church still keeps the chains he wore.
Devasahayam — “God is my help”
O Jesus, it is for love of you that I suffer.
— the martyr to his torturers, recorded in Le Maduré (Auguste Jean, S.J., 1894)
01
He was born Neelakanta Pillai, a nobleman in the kingdom of Travancore. Gifted in mind and bearing, he rose to high office at the court of King Marthanda Varma and was entrusted with command in his armies, even being given charge of one of the royal fortresses. Yet, as the older chroniclers put it, “God reserved him for higher destinies” — a run of reverses plunged him into a sorrow that rank and royal favour could not heal.
02
In his trouble he confided in a fellow officer of the king's service, Eustachius De Lannoy — a European commander entrusted with one of Travancore's strongest fortresses, and, the sources say, “a most excellent Christian.” De Lannoy spoke to him of the imperishable goods promised to those who serve the one true God. The words fell on his soul, the old account remembers, “like a heavenly balm.” Convinced of the falseness of his old worship, Neelakanta declared himself ready for baptism.
03
De Lannoy sent him to the Jesuit Father Bouttari, at that hour the parish priest of the Christians of Vadakkankulam. The Father, foreseeing the storm that would follow, urged caution: the convert would face the wrath of his own kinsmen, the hostility of the brahmins all-powerful at court, the certain loss of his royal office. The young man answered that having found the true God, he would never abandon him, “though it cost him every advantage of this world, and even life itself.” Fr Bouttari baptised him in 1745 and gave him the name Devasahayam — “God is my help,” the Tamil for Lazarus. His wife was soon baptised; then other relatives; even officers of the army he had once commanded.
04
Fr Bouttari was at that very time building the church at Vadakkankulam. Short of wood for it, he asked Devasahayam to obtain royal permission to cut timber from the king's forests. Devasahayam went to a brahmin who had long been his friend, of great credit at court — but the brahmin seized the meeting to demand that he renounce Christ. The dispute that followed the brahmin lost; humiliated, he swore: “Either I will make you renounce your religion, or you will pay for it with your head.” The convert replied in kind. So it was — in seeking timber for our own church — that the storm broke over him.
05
Through intrigue and slander the brahmin obtained from the king a warrant of arrest. Devasahayam surrendered without resistance, asking only to bid farewell to his friend De Lannoy: “Courage,” the captain told him, “the moment has come to prove you are a worthy soldier of Jesus Christ.” A missionary was secretly brought to hear his confession. Brought before the king he confessed Christ, and was sentenced to death — yet the idol-priests, having consulted the auguries, declared the execution would bring calamity on the kingdom; the superstitious king revoked the order, “to the great regret of the convert, who feared for a moment that God did not judge him worthy of the crown of martyrdom.”
06
Unwilling now to kill him but bent on breaking him, the king ordered him paraded village to village across the kingdom, hands bound behind his back, mounted on a buffalo, with the crowd urged to abuse him. He took it, the chronicle says, as a share in the humiliations of his Saviour. Then came the torture: beaten with rods set with thorns until his body was one wound, ground pepper rubbed into the lacerations. He answered only: “O Jesus, it is for love of you that I suffer” — and sometimes added, “and for the expiation of my sins.” When his torturers ground the corrosive powder into his face, he told them not to spare his eyes — “for in my youth they were instruments of sin.” One day, marched over the burning sands by the sea and tormented by thirst, he begged for water; his guards gave him sea-water. He drank it with confidence — and found it fresh and without any bitterness.
07
Returned to Trivandram and shut in a dungeon, he drew such crowds — Christians and curious pagans alike, whom he never failed to teach — that the king ordered him taken at night to a desert place three leagues away and chained to a tree, unable to take a step or even to stand. For seven months he stayed so, exposed to sun and storm. At last his guards, moved to pity, lengthened the chain and raised a thatch above him. He used his small liberty to write to De Lannoy, telling him the place of his captivity and asking for a priest who would bring him “the Bread of the strong.” De Lannoy obeyed faithfully; the Eucharist came to him in the wilderness. Word of his hiding-place spread; the desert became a pilgrimage. Christians and pagans poured in daily; miracles were reported through his prayer. This lasted, the old book says, for two years.
08
Unable to silence the multitude, the king at last cast off his superstition and pronounced the sentence of death. Soldiers came in the middle of the night and told him only that he was being moved to another prison — but, illumined from above, he answered: “Why do you dissimulate? I know where you are taking me; let us go without delay.” Arriving at the place of execution he asked a few moments to pray; then, rising: “I have done my duty; it is for you to do yours.” Three musket shots were fired into him. He fell pronouncing the names of Jesus and Mary, and a second volley consummated his martyrdom. So died, after three years of cruel suffering, this Christian hero — on 14 January 1752, at Aralvaimozhi. His body was carried to Kottar and buried in the church of St Francis Xavier. On 15 May 2022 Pope Francis declared him a saint.
Our Parish Bond
Devasahayam is venerated across India, but his story is woven through our parish at every turn. The font that received him, the church that was being built when he was arrested, and the relics still kept here — all belong to Vadakkankulam.
It was here at Vadakkankulam that the Jesuit Father Jean-Baptiste Bouttari, then parish priest, poured the water of baptism on Neelakanta Pillai and gave him the name Devasahayam — “God is my help,” the Tamil for Lazarus.
Fr Bouttari was building the church at Vadakkankulam. The whole ordeal began when Devasahayam, seeking timber from the royal forests for that very building, was confronted by the brahmin who would later destroy him. The martyrdom and our church are bound together at their root.
From his death in 1752 to today, the church of Vadakkankulam has treasured a part of the garment he wore at his martyrdom and the very chains with which he was bound. (Auguste Jean, S.J., Le Maduré, 1894.)
Fr Bouttari (1707–1757), who baptised him, began the church and is remembered at Vadakkankulam “in benediction.” After Fr Bouttari was sent to heal another troubled mission at Aour, Fr Clément Tomassini finished the church he had begun — so beloved by the people that they named their children after him, and even pagans invoked him in drought.
Sources
Compiled principally from Auguste Jean, S.J., Le Maduré: l'ancienne et la nouvelle mission, Vol. I (Paris, 1894), pp. 196–203, and from the Notice sur le P. J.-B. Bouttari in Joseph Bertrand, S.J., La Mission du Maduré, Vol. IV (Paris, 1847), pp. 385–420. Both works are preserved in the parish's Maduré Mission library.