Medak Church decked up for Xmas

• Five to six lakh devotees are expected to attend the prayers
• Apart from decking up the second largest Church in Asia, organisers are taking care to ensure safety of visitors

Medak: Festive atmosphere is prevailing in Medak town with of the Church of South India, Medak Diocese, popularly known as the Medak Church, braces itself for the Christmas celebrations to be held on Friday.

Five to six lakh devotees are expected to attend the grand celebrations to be held at this second largest Church in Asia spreading over 300 acres of lush green landscape.

Devotees from across south India and also foreign tourists are expected to attend the main festivities which would start from 4 am on Friday. Prayers continue until noon after which each and every devotee would be blessed by around 15 pastors (4 within the Church, 2 retired pastors and 15 pastors from Hyderabad).

Prayers and counselling would be offered to devotees with health and other personal issues within a time frame ranging from two to ten minutes. The prayers would continue until late night until all the devotees receive the blessings from pastors.

Five huge LCD screens are being installed at strategic points, so that the devotees who cannot be accommodated within the Cathedral can watch the prayer proceedings from outside. The Cathedral can accommodate between 5000 and 6000 devotees at a time.

Tents to accommodate up to 1 lakh devotees would be pitched up on the open ground. All the paid rooms to accommodate pilgrims have already been booked. However, there are four halls, boys hostel, girls hostel and the Sunday school building are all available to accommodate devotees who want to spend the night at the Church. There are about 3 lodging houses in Medak Town as well.

Though there is a water purifying plant on the premises, auto- rickshaws selling water cans would be making rounds throughout the event. There are about 140 pay and use toilets in the premises.

The Church administration has taken special care to offer primary health care to devotees and about 200- 300 policemen would be deployed for the event. Around 200 volunteers would be assisting the devotees throughout the event.

The special attraction to the event is the mela (fair) which is being organised on the premises. Giant-wheel, tora-tora and other amusements have already come up and stalls are being constructed for selling food, books, accessories and so on.

Another attraction is the giant balloon in the shape of Santa Claus and another one with Christmas wishes.