The Shillong Archdiocese has mourned the death of Fr Varkey Chittoor (88), the last of the three diocesan priests from South India who were the first to come to North East India as missionaries in the then two Catholic Church dioceses of Shillong and Dibrugarh. Fr Chittoor passed away on 28th October at Nazareth Hospital where he had been ailing for more than a month. Two other colleague priests of Fr Chittoor, Fathers John Mariae and Alexander, who had come with him in 1959, had predeceased him a few years earlier.
The Archdiocese of Shillong not only mourned the passing away of Fr Chittoor but also offered holy mass and prayers attended by the Catholic faithful. During his more than sixty years of missionary work in North East India, Fr Chittoor’s work as priest of the Catholic Church was mainly in the Khasi Hills starting as assistant parish priests at Marbisu in 1959 and from 1966 to 1972 as parish priest of the same parish. In his long years of Catholic Church ministry till his retirement in 1993, Fr Chittoor had served in the various mission stations of the Catholic Church in Khasi Hills.
The arrangements for his funeral on Tuesday, included the Concelebration Requiem Mass at 1.30 pm which was followed by the funeral cortege to the Laitumkhrah Catholic Cemetery.
Source: www.shillongtimes.com
