Varghese Payyappilly Palakkappilly

Varghese Payyappilly Palakkappilly was a priest of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in Kerala, on the Malabar Coast of southern India, and the founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Destitute. He was born on 8 August 1876 at Perumanoor, in the neighbourhood of Konthuruthy, then in the Kingdom of Cochin. He belonged to the Palakkappilly branch of the Payyappilly family, a Saint Thomas Christian household of the region. His parents were Payyappilly Palakkappilly Ouseph and Ittiethu. He grew up in the East Syriac liturgical and social world of the Nasrani community and received priestly formation at the seminary of Puthenpally, the principal house of studies for Syro-Malabar clergy in that period. He was ordained to the priesthood on 21 December 1907 by Mar Louis Pazheparambil, Vicar Apostolic of Ernakulam.

In the years after ordination he served as parish priest in several stations of the Vicariate Apostolic of Ernakulam, among them Kadamakkudy and Alangad, and later as vicar of the parish of Arakuzha. He was also made manager of St. Mary's School at Aluva, an important educational institution of the vicariate. Those who later testified to his life described a pastor who combined firm administration with personal austerity and a practical concern for people without means or family. He used parish and school buildings to shelter the displaced during the severe Kerala flood of 1924, organized food and care for victims, and was frequently called upon to settle disputes over land and family matters. He directed resources toward the sick, the aged, and those regarded as socially discarded, rather than toward display or personal comfort.

On 19 March 1927, at Chunangamvely, he founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Destitute, a community of women religious in the Syro-Malabar Church whose purpose was to care for the aged, the abandoned, and the dying who had no one to receive them. The foundation grew out of his earlier efforts to house and nurse people who were left on the roadsides or turned away from existing institutions. He himself remained a diocesan priest and did not enter a religious order; he acted as founder and guide while the sisters took up the daily work of nursing and shelter. The congregation established homes for the destitute and developed into a recognized institute dedicated to works of mercy among the poorest.

In 1929 he contracted typhoid fever in the course of his pastoral and charitable work and died on 5 October 1929, aged fifty-three. He was buried at Konthuruthy; his remains were later transferred to the chapel of the Sisters of the Destitute at Chunangamvely, which became the principal place of his tomb and of local devotion. A canonical process for his canonization was opened in the Syro-Malabar Church. After investigation of his life and of the reputation for holiness attached to him, Pope Francis approved the decree of heroic virtues, and Payyappilly was declared Venerable on 14 April 2018. He has not been beatified or canonized, and he has no universally assigned feast day or official patronages. He is remembered above all in the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly and among the Sisters of the Destitute as a priest whose ministry was defined by care for those whom society ignored.