Bishop Gerald John Mathias

Bishop Gerald John Mathias, Bishop of Lucknow, was born on September 20, 1953, at Kallianpur, in the Diocese of Udupi. He studied at St. Paul's Seminary in Lucknow and read philosophy and theology at St. Charles' Seminary in Nagpur, taking a bachelor of arts at Nagpur University in 1975, and he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Lucknow on April 22, 1979. He afterwards took a doctorate in sacred theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He was vice-rector and a professor of St. Charles' Seminary in Nagpur from 1988 to 1994, and parish priest of St. Joseph's Cathedral in Lucknow from 1995 to 2000. On December 22, 1999, he was appointed Bishop of Simla and Chandigarh. He received episcopal ordination on April 9, 2000, at Chandigarh, with Alan Basil de Lastic as principal consecrator and Gilbert Blaize Rego and Albert D'Souza as co-consecrators. On November 8, 2007, he was appointed Bishop of Lucknow, and he was installed on January 4, 2008.