Archbishop of Raipur
Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur, Archbishop of Raipur, was born on July 1, 1954, at Chakhni, in Bihar, in what is now the Diocese of Bettiah and was then part of the Diocese of Patna. He joined the minor seminary for Raipur at St. Charles' Seminary in Nagpur in 1974, took his college studies at St. Francis de Sales College in Nagpur from 1975 to 1979, and studied philosophy and theology at St. Charles' Seminary in Nagpur from 1975 to 1984, with a year of regency as headmaster of the Bharat Mata English Medium School at Bilaspur from 1979 to 1980. He was ordained a priest on May 3, 1984, at Chakhni. From 1987 to 1992 he studied in Rome, taking a licentiate and a doctorate in dogmatic theology. On June 27, 1998, he was appointed Bishop of Bettiah. He received episcopal ordination on November 11, 1998, with Telesphore Placidus Toppo as principal consecrator and John Baptist Thakur and Joseph Augustine Charanakunnel as co-consecrators. On July 3, 2013, he was appointed Archbishop of Raipur, and he was installed on September 19, 2013.