Bishop of Rajkot (Syro-Malabar)
Bishop José Chittooparambil, Bishop of Rajkot (Syro-Malabar), was born on December 10, 1954, at Neeleswaram, near Ernakulam in Kerala, in the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly (Syro-Malabar), and his parish of origin is the Assumption Monastery parish of Neeleswaram. In 1971 he joined the Sacred Heart Province of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate at Kalamassery, and he completed his schooling at Infant Jesus High School in Vazhakulam in 1972 and his pre-degree course at St. Paul's College, Kalamassery. He made his novitiate at Karukutty and his first religious profession on June 5, 1977. He studied philosophy and theology at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram in Bangalore, and he took a master's degree in social work at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala. After his philosophical studies he asked to work in the Gujarat mission and became a member of the St. Xavier's Region of Rajkot. He was ordained a priest on May 8, 1985, by Gregory Karotemprel, Bishop of Rajkot, and he began his priestly ministry as assistant parish priest of the Immaculate Conception parish in Rajkot. He was then made responsible for the mission centres of the Eparchy of Rajkot, and his first appointment was to open a new mission station in the remote village of Naikattechi, in Gujarat, where he lived in a mud house without basic facilities and worked for the development of the poor and marginalized of the area. From 1992 to 1994 he was administrator of the formation centre at Poornodaya in Bhopal, and he afterwards worked at the centre for inter-religious dialogue in Gujarat and headed the department for social works of the Eparchy of Rajkot. Between 1994 and 2008 he was a member of the project selection committee of Caritas India in New Delhi, procurator of the Western Region Social Service Forum in Mumbai, editor-in-chief of the review Third Millennium and an eparchial consultor of Rajkot, and from 2008 he was Superior of the St. Xavier's Province of Rajkot. Besides Malayalam he knows English, Hindi and Gujarati. On July 16, 2010, he was appointed Bishop of Rajkot (Syro-Malabar). He received episcopal ordination on September 11, 2010, with Gregory Karotemprel as principal consecrator and Stanislaus Fernandes and Thomas Chakiath as co-consecrators.