Bishop Amalraj Arulappan

Bishop Amalraj Arulappan, Bishop of Ootacamund, was born on December 4, 1953, at Attadi, near Coonoor, in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu and in the Diocese of Ootacamund, and he was baptized in December 1953 in St. Antony's Church at Coonoor. After his elementary and middle schooling at Coonoor he entered the St. Pius X minor seminary of his diocese and continued his ecclesiastical studies at St. Peter's Pontifical Seminary in Bangalore. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Ootacamund on December 26, 1980, in St. Antony's Church at Coonoor. He was parochial vicar at Sathyamangalam and at Ketti from 1981 to 1982, and from 1982 to 1987 he studied in Rome for the licentiate and the doctorate in dogmatic theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, residing at the Pontifical College of St. Paul the Apostle. He was then parochial vicar at Nagalur from 1987 to 1988, professor and dean of theology at the Good Shepherd Seminary in Coimbatore from 1988 to 1995, and rector of that seminary from 1996 to 2005, and from May 2005 he spent a sabbatical year in the United States of America. He holds a bachelor's degree in history and a doctorate in theology, and besides Tamil and English he knows Italian and German. On June 30, 2006, he was appointed Bishop of Ootacamund. He received episcopal ordination on August 9, 2006, with Malayappan Chinnappa as principal consecrator and Antony Anandarayar and Ambrose Mathalaimuthu as co-consecrators. His episcopal motto is Ad Gloriam Dei, Ad Bonum Fidelium, For the glory of God and for the good of the people.