Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Shamshabad


The Marthoma Nazrani Eparchy of Shamshabad is an Eastern Catholic eparchy headquartered in Telangana, India, under the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. It was established by Pope Francis on 10 October 2017, and Raphael Thattil was appointed its first bishop. In a letter to the bishops of India, Francis cited India's decades of experience with "overlapping jurisdictions" of different sui iuris churches. He wrote: "With the growth of spiritual friendship and mutual assistance, any tension or apprehension should be swiftly overcome. May this extension of the pastoral area of the Syro-Malabar Church in no way be perceived as a growth in power and domination, but as a call to deeper communion, which should never be perceived as uniformity."
The new jurisdiction was inaugurated with Thattil's installation on 7 January 2018. The cathedral is the St. Alphonsa Syro-Malabar Catholic Church at Kukatpally, in Greater Hyderabad.
There are 130,000 Catholics in the Shamshabad diocese with eleven functional churches and seven under construction.