Emmanuel, God with us, who didst make thy home in every culture and community on earth: We offer thanks for the raising up of thy servant Samuel Azariah as the first indigenous bishop in India. Grant that we may be strengthened by his witness to thy love without concern for class or caste, and by his labors for the unity of the Church in India, that people of many languages and cultures might with one voice give thee glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
Evening Prayer 1.2.16, Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, 1st Indigenous Bishop in India, 1945 https://t.co/3ysDk78ksZ pic.twitter.com/vCwnIRG1Ds
— Josh Thomas (@dailyoffice) January 2, 2016
It might be better if the collect celebrated Samuel Azariah as the first Anglican India-born bishop. By 1945 there had been well over a dozen RC Indian bishops consecrated, mostly for the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankar Catholic churches, but also for the Latin church (e.g., Joseph Atipetty, who was made Coadjutor Archbishop of Verapoly in 1932. Most of the Oriental Orthodox bishops had been sent out from Chaldea and Syria for 17 or 18 centuries until the 1940s– as far as I know they had no India-born bishops until around WWII.