St George Shrine Pilgrim Centre Kulathuvayal, Catholic pilgrimage church in Kulathuvayal, India.
St George's Syro-Malabar Forane Church stands on Kulathuvayal hill top in Perambra, Kozhikode district. The present church was consecrated in the parish's silver jubilee year, five years after its foundation stone was laid, under vicar Msgr. C. J. Varkey Kuzhikulam. It has a balcony, a priest's house and an eighty-foot tower. The cemetery founded by Fr. Joseph Peediekkal in 1941 lies beside it.
The church began in 1941 when Rev Fr Joseph Peediekkal built a thatched structure on land donated by Janab Moythu Sahib. In 2012, Cardinal Mar George Alanchery designated it as the sole Pilgrim Centre within the Syro-Malabar Church.
The parish is named after St George, and its annual feast draws settlers' descendants from Perambra, Maruthonkara and Padathukadavu. Fr Thomas Ayilloor, the first vicar from 1944, started St George LP School at Kulathuvayal and four other lower primary schools for settler children. A volleyball trophy is still played for in memory of Msgr C. J. Varkey Kuzhikulam, vicar for sixteen years and a keen sportsman.
The shrine is accessible from Perambra town and sits near Vatakara railway station. Visitors should plan their journey using local transport options and check available services in advance.
The 1943 church was rebuilt with granite pillars and a tiled roof, paid for largely by the gold ornaments of about 25 poor families. Its first permanent vicar, Fr. Thomas Ayilloor, appointed in 1944, carried Koyna tablets in his pockets and distributed them house to house during the forest fevers.
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