Orissa CM requested to re-build churches before Christmas

The Christian delegation that met with Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday requested fastened rebuilding of churches that were destroyed during the Kandhamal violence, preferably before Christmas this year.

"We are making an attempt to start, an attempt to get back to normal. Let us hope it would be successful" by Christmas time, Archbishop Raphael Cheenath said.

He told the CM that many Christians have migrated to other states, as they are afraid to return to their villages.

The delegation demanded that the state provide police and paramilitary security for people to return to their villages and relief camps of 2,000 to 3,000 people be split into smaller camps of 800 to 900 people.

In response, Mr Patnaik agreed to the plan and has started setting up smaller camps, where priests and nuns are assisting the villagers, bring back life to normalcy.

"Last year we could not celebrate Christmas" because of anti-Christian violence, Archbishop Cheenath recalled. That wave of violence started on Christmas Eve in Kandhamal, which has a large population of Christians.

"This year we should celebrate Christmas," he asserted, adding that the Church leaders conveyed these sentiments to Patnaik.

He responded, "You would celebrate Christmas this year," the archbishop reported.

According to Bishop of Balasore, Monsignor Thiruthalil, Christians and Hindus till recently lived in peace with one another in the riot-hit district.

"Kandhamal was a place of religious tolerance and mutual cooperation. People helped each other working in the fields, sowing and harvesting crops; Hindus and Christians even celebrated religious festivals together. Regrettably, fundamentalists sowed hatred and suspicion in the minds of Hindus who then turned against the Christians," he told AsiaNews.