CCBI News

Imphal, manipur: January 28, 2011: Hundreds of people Jan. 28 attended the funeral of a Czech Salesian missioner who served the Church in India for more than three quarters of a century. Father John Med died on Jan. 25 at Imphal, capital of Manipur, after prolonged illness. He was 96. The funeral was held at Dimapur, commercial capital of Nagaland. The priest spent nearly half a century in Manipur and Nagaland states. Archbishop Dominic Lumon of Imphal, who led the Requiem Mass, described the missioner as “a committed religious and missionary” and said his death has left a “great vacuum” in Catholics in the two states. Father James Poonthuruthil, who heads the Salesian Dimapur province, hailed Father Med as a man of “unfathomable missionary zeal” and “extraordinary” stamina for work and travel serving the Church in northeastern India. The Indian Salesian, in his homily, noted that the Czech missioner had visited his family in his country only once during his 76 years of stay in India. He also noted that the late missioner had opened several educational institutions in various parts of India. “Father Med was an educator par excellence. He knew that the secret of development is education,” he added. Father Med was born on April 13, 1916 in the Czech Republic and joined the Salesian novitiate in 1933. After the novitiate, his superiors asked him to go to India as a missioner although he wanted to go to China, according to Salesian Father Tarcisius Toppo. He was ordained a priest in 1943 when his entire family was imprisoned by the Nazi government. In 1958, he became the provincial of Salesians working in Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, besides Sri Lanka. He started Kristu Jyoti College, a Salesian theologate, in Bangalore in 1964. Six years later, he came to Shillong, Meghalaya, as novice master. Later he worked in several parishes in northeastern India. In 1992, he was transferred to Imphal, where he remained until his death. Sources: donboscoindia.com