Our Lady of Health, Khairatabad

St Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ has been the greatest testament of true discipleship. “We never give more honour to Jesus than when we honour his mother, and we honour her simply and solely to honour him all the more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek - Jesus, her son," was how Saint Louis Marie de Montfort described her adoration towards Mary.

Our Lady of Our Health Church, situated at A C Guards is dedicated to St Mary. The church is the biggest octagonal church (eight-sided-polygon type of architecture) in Asia. It is also one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in Hyderabad and is under the supervision of Archdiocese of Hyderabad. The deity of the church holds the capability to restore health, naming the shrine ‘Our Lady of Health.’

The birthday of Blessed Mary marks the biggest celebration of the church each year. The feast is on September 8. On the day of the feast and also during the season over a lakh crowd from Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh visit the shrine.

“Our Lady of Health at Velankanni in Tamil Nadu is the most charismatic church in India. For people from Andhra Pradesh, be it a Hindu or a Muslim, the appeal of Our Lady of Health, Khairatabad holds a similar stature,” shared Fr Joy Paul, assistant parish priest. In Mumbai, Mount Mary Church at Bandra, also sees similar crowd for St Mary’s feast. Unlike other shrines, at Bandra the feast begins from September 8.

In the year 1898, Capt Fallon, the then O C of the third infantry of Nizam’s Army, permitted the construction of a chapel to serve the personnel of A C Guards. By the year 1903, under the headship Fr Malberti, the parish priest of St Joseph’s Cathedral, the construction of the Chapel began. On January 10, 1904 Bishop Vigano consecrated the chapel to commemorate the golden jubilee of the declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The chapel became originally known as the ‘Church of Our Lady of Divine Grace’. Later with a noteworthy role of Fr Roch who put forward the proposals for school and hospitals, resulted in the construction of institutions like Holy Mary High School and Vijay Marie Hospital at Khairatabad. There is little information with regard to when the new parish of ‘Our Lady of Health’ was started and who the first parish priest was.

In 1954, the Nizam of Hyderabad Mir Osman Ali Khan Fateh Jung, laid the foundation stone to a novel Octagonal Church. It took nearly five years for the construction of the temple to be completed. The expenses were bore by the Archbishop of Hyderabad. The total cost of construction went upto Rs 1,75,000. By, then the parish came to be known as Our Lady of Health.

Khairatabad Church has been a Sacred Shrine since 1904. The number of people visiting this shrine has increased over the years. Attempts were made to build a parish hall and to create facilities to receive the pilgrims. One serious attempt was made in 1980, when Fr Benny was the parish priest. Foundation for the parish hall was laid by the then archbishop S Arulappa. But the construction project did not take off.

In 1997, the Parish Pastoral Council members reminded the new parish priest Fr Y M Joseph about the construction of a parish hall and the pilgrim center. The then Archbishop promised to support the project with financial help of 40% of the total cost. Though the financial assistance was not provided, the construction was undertaken with the savings from the shrine, the contribution from people and a loan from Hyderabad Archdiocese Social Service Society (HASSS). The history of Khairatabad parish is entwined with the faithful life history of Fr Roch, as a person and as priest. He always remained in the hearts of the people of Khairatabad.