Cochin [Kochi] (Coccino), Diocese of

COCHIN [KOCHI] (COCCINO), DIOCESE OF. - A city of eastern India on the Malabar coast and the seat of a diocese suffragan to the patriarchal see of Goa. Its territory comprises two strips of land 80 and 48 km long respectively. In 1948, out of a total population of about 400,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 171,480 under the direction of 91 priests, mostly native, and 14 religious, with 50 parishes; furthermore a minor seminary, 88 schools with about 10,000 children, 7 vocational schools and 4 colleges. Thanks to Portugal, which introduced Catholic missionary work into the Indies, C. became the cradle of Catholicism in that country. In fact, in 1500, five of the eight Franciscan missionaries who, under the direction of Fr. Henry of Coimbra, landed at Calicut with Alvarez Cabral, established their seat at C. and made it a center of connection. From there they set out to work for the conversion of the neighboring peoples, especially the Nestorians. From as early as 1502 these were ceding the scepter of their ancient kings to the king of Portugal, invoking his protection against the Mohammedans. Their bishop promised obedience to the Pope through the Franciscans and two Nestorian priests sent to Rome. In 1540 the Franciscans founded the first college at Cranganore, with the aim of bringing the Nestorians back to the Catholic faith. The majority of the Nestorians had converted to Catholicism before the 1600s. The Jesuits, having entered the Indies under the leadership of the great St. Francis Xavier in 1542, likewise established themselves at C. in 1550, built a college there (1560) and then also a novitiate (1562), later founding there their Malabar province (1601). In their turn came also the Dominicans (1553), the Augustinians and the Capuchins.

Thus the city became the stronghold of Catholicism, from which the missionaries set out, under Portuguese direction, for the evangelization of southern India and Ceylon. Pius IV, raising Goa to the rank of metropolis on 4 February 1558, also erected the diocese of C., granting its patronage to the king of Portugal. At that time the diocese embraced a vast territory later divided into more than 11 bishoprics. In 1663 the Dutch seized C. and, after driving out the clergy, destroyed the principal religious buildings, transforming the church of St. Francis of Assisi into a Protestant temple and the cathedral of St. Cruz into a warehouse. When the English put the Dutch to flight in 1795, they preserved the first monument for Protestant worship and destroyed the second in 1806. Nevertheless, on 1 September 1886 Leo XIII, by virtue of a concordat with Louis, king of Portugal (23 June 1886), re-established the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the Portuguese Indies and assigned the present limits of C.

Corrado Morin.