The Church On The Hill: Retelling a story of faith, 155 years later

Dr David calls the book one of his most challenging works yet. “I started researching on this church way back in 2002; usually research work does not take more than six months. But here I had to wait almost six years. This was because the ecclesiastical (religious) department of the government did not have sufficient records. What followed was a long wait and finally I got the historical papers from the Maharashtra State Archives. The writing work began early this year,” says David.

The church was built for the benefit of Protestants who did not have a church of their own. “During the pre-Independence era, Bandra was a small village inhabited by Kolis and Kunbis. When the British employees came to the city they did not have lot of choices. Most of them, incidentally, were Protestants. So a group of parishioners united and collected a princely sum of Rs 8,000 to build this church,” says parishioner and former joint secretary to the Governor of Maharashtra, K C Nainan. Legend also has it that the then Governor, John Vaupal, inspired by the parishioners’ attempts, also gave some money. The church was finally made open to the public in 1853.

Keeping in line with the cosmopolitan quality of the city, the church too has seen some changes. “Till the 1970s, the church was primarily considered an Anglican church; however we decided to cut away all such classifications. From 1976, the church became a very Indian church and started attracting people cutting across all barriers,” says priest Reverend K I Dyvasirvadam.

The city does not have any dearth of old churches, but parishioners and regulars agree that this church is indeed different.

“The church has huge stained glass paintings that tell stories from the Bible. The glass for these paintings was directly shipped from England. In fact, the main painting of the Lady Chapel was presented to the church after a devotee’s wife died,” said Dyvasirvadam. This is also perhaps the city’s only church which has the priest’s home and a cemetery garden among other interesting and touching memorabilia. “In most other churches, a cemetery is not kept in a very good condition. This is perhaps the only church where you can find a cemetery garden that does not spook you out, it is also the most pleasing church I have visited in the city,” said a regular from the nearby Hill Road, Josephine Mathews.

St Stephen’s church also runs a special center for slum children. “I came to this church when I was 5 years old, my father worked as a gardener here. The church helped me a lot with my studies and today I work for this church doing all kinds of jobs, my wife too works as a teacher in their center,” said 31-year-old employee Jeetendra Moitra in flawless English. “I owe everything to this church, it is my home. If my father had not come to this church, I don’t know how my life would have turned.”