Celebrating Christmas inside 100-year-old Medak Cathedral built during a famine

The Medak Cathedral marks 100 years to the day when it was opened for worship in 1924.
| Photo Credit: Serish Nanisetti

On Christmas Day, Mettu Deva Prakasham will step into the Medak Cathedral for the midnight service with a sense of awe and ownership. A hundred years ago, when Reverend Robert H. Posnett and his brother Reverend Charles Walker Posnett held the first service and travelled in a procession led by elephants to mark the first Christmas, Mr. Deva Prakasham’s maternal and paternal grandparents were part of the laity that numbered about 3,000 on that day. They heard the Christmas sermon by Rev. Daniel Napoleon. A hundred years later on December 25, 2024, their grandson will attend the service at Church of South India cathedral.

A tablet made of marble at the Medak Cathedral which reads that it was declared open for worship on the Christmas day of 1924. 
| Photo Credit:
Serish Nanisetti

“It was period of severe famine when my paternal great grandfather came in search of food and work to Medak. The lakes had dried up, there was no rain and there were no food grains, families resorted to selling children. At that time, Mr. Charles Posnett started building a hospital, a school and hostels to create work, and my grandfather Latchiah came from Gopalpet to Medak to work,” says Mr. Deva Prakasham.

People who worked for Rev. Charles Posnett got one meal a day of rice that was imported from Burma (present day Myanmar). The assured food-for-work saw migration by droves of people from the surrounding areas. The numbers were such that the village known as Siddapur in Kakatiya times and Gulshanabad in Nizam’s time became Medak (a corruption of methuku or grain of rice). “The land on which the cathedral stands is a gift of the Nizam,” informs Reverend T. Shantaiah. 

The work on the cathedral began in 1914 when the World War was raging in Europe triggering a widespread diversion of rations from across the the country. Rev. Charles Posnett roped in the services of Messrs Bradshaw, Gass and Hope of Bolton in England for imagining the grand plan he had. By the end of 10 years, the company had shared some 200 plans incorporating different modifications desired by the missionary who landed in India in 1897 and worked for two years at the Garrison Church in Trimulgherry. “He moved to Medak as he wanted to serve people who had more dire need. It was a period of epidemics and famines and Rev. Charles Posnett wanted to serve the people who were suffering,” informs Mr. Shantaiah.

It was at this time that Rev. Charles Posnett started planning and building the cathedral which is counted as among the grandest in the country. Among the apocryphal tales is the height of the cathedral was limited to 173 feet as the Nizam Osman Ali Khan did not want the church to be taller than the Charminar. And so it was.

The ceiling of the Medak Cathedral takes the breath away with its ribbed squares. It was opened for worship in 1924.
| Photo Credit:
Serish Nanisetti

But inside, no stone was left unturned to create the grandeur. The 200-foot nave is covered with mosaic tiles brought in from England and were affixed by Italian masons who came from Bombay. This is topped by a ceiling that takes the breath away with ribbed squares.

The stained glass panels at the Medak Cathedral were added over the decades after it was opened for worship in 1924.
| Photo Credit:
Serish Nanisetti

The stained glass panels at the Medak Cathedral were added over the decades after it was opened for worship in 1924.
| Photo Credit:
Serish Nanisetti

The stained glass panels were added later over a few decades with the first Ascension of Jesus Christ installed in 1927 and the Nativity panel on the eastern side were added in 1947. The final Crucifixion panel went up in 1958 and has the words ‘Yehudion ka Raja’ (King of Jews was added in Hindi language) above the thorny crown and “Nenu bhoomi meeda nundi paiketha badinappudu andarini naa yoddaku cherchukondu” (When I ascend to Heaven, I will gather all people into my fold). The lines in Indian languages was a tip of hat for the newly freed nation.

To mark the 100 years of the cathedral, Telangana Governor Jishnu Dev Varma is scheduled to visit the church on December 22 and Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy is likely to visit the church on Christmas. 

To mark the occasion, the cathedral has been whitewashed that fleshes out the granite. Devotees from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have already reached the place and are camping in the 297-acre land of the church. Some have brought lambs with them, others chicken and some others food stuff from the surrounding food stalls that have cropped up. An open area beside the entrance gives the feel of a carnival as three huge ferris wheels have been set up for the visitors. Inside the church, people from all faiths wander in, some sit and stare in wonder. Others reach out to the priests for ministrations. “This is a place of faith and belief for all people,” informs Rev. David Richards who listens to the devotees and prays for them.

The cathedral had the first service in 1924. By the end of Rev. Charles Posnett’s 44-year tenure in Medak, the laity number had gone up from 4,254 to 121,098. The cathedral that was built at the time of a famine had turned into a place of bounty. In 1938, a visitor recounted how people brought in bags of rice, poultry and other produce from their farms as thanksgiving. 

They also brought in a slice of Telangana — Bathukamma. Basil Matthews, who wrote about his experiences in India in 1938 is struck with wonder about his experience in the church: “For instance, in the Medak district of Hyderabad State, it is a custom at one of the Hindu festivals to put cone-shaped baskets upside down on the ground and fill the interstices with flowers; then the girls dance round them singing Hindu lyrics. Among the more than one hundred thousand Christians in the villages of Medak of today, the maidens put on their best saris and carry little lights in their hands as they dance in the evening round baskets of flowers singing Christian songs.”