Augustine John Ukken

Augustine John Ukken was a priest of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in Kerala, in southern India, known for pastoral work among the poor and for founding a congregation of women religious devoted to works of charity. He was born on 19 December 1880 at Puthenchira in the Thrissur district, then under British rule in India, to Punnaparambil Varkey and Chalakkal Annamma. He was orphaned in childhood: his mother died when he was about six years old and his father a few years later. He was thereafter raised under the care of a relative. Later accounts of his life regularly connect this early bereavement with his subsequent concern for orphans, the sick, and people without family support.

He entered priestly formation for the Syro-Malabar Church and studied, among other places, at the Papal Seminary in Kandy in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). He was ordained a priest on 21 December 1907 by Bishop John Menachery. Over the following decades he served in the Vicariate, later Diocese, of Trichur (Thrissur) in a range of assignments: parish ministry in several communities, work as secretary to the bishop, management of St. Thomas College in Thrissur, and service as rector of the minor seminary. He remained a diocesan (secular) priest rather than a member of a religious order. Descriptions from his own time present him as a priest of simple personal habits who combined administrative duties with direct care for the poor, the ill, and the abandoned.

On 21 November 1944 he founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity, also known as the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Trichur, a community of women religious whose apostolate was directed toward education, care of the sick and aged, and service to the poor and destitute. The congregation began in modest circumstances associated with Chowannur in Thrissur district and later extended its work in Kerala and elsewhere. Ukken’s later years were closely tied to this foundation and to continued pastoral service. He died on 13 October 1956. His remains were interred in the chapel of the Sisters of Charity at their motherhouse in Chowannur.

The cause for his beatification was taken up in the Archdiocese of Trichur. He was declared a Servant of God in 2008 when the diocesan inquiry was under way. On 31 August 2018 Pope Francis authorized the decree recognizing his heroic virtues, by which he received the title Venerable. He has not been beatified or canonized in subsequently verified public record, and he has no universally assigned liturgical feast or official patronages. His memory is preserved especially among the Sisters of Charity and in the Syro-Malabar Catholic community of central Kerala.