QUILON, DIOCESE OF. — It is situated in southwestern India. Tradition traces the founding of a church at Q. to St. Thomas the Apostle.
It is certain that from ancient times Christians were to be found there; these later adhered to the Eastern Schism. The diocese of Q. was erected by John XII in 1329. In 1544 St. Francis Xavier founded a Christian community there that withstood various persecutions, and whose descendants form the oldest nucleus of Catholics in the present diocese. With Portuguese rule, the territory of the ancient diocese passed to Cochin, then to the Apostolic Vicariate of Malabar; from which in 1854 the Apostolic Vicariate of Q. was detached, and this in 1886, with the establishment of the hierarchy in India, was raised to the status of a diocese. In 1930, after further division of territory for the erection of the diocese of Trivandrum of the Latins, the diocese of Q. was entrusted to the secular clergy. It is a suffragan of Verapoly.
At present the diocese covers an area of 3,465 sq. km. and has a population of 1,891,900, of whom 1,242,060 are pagans, 174,600 Muslims, 215,870 schismatics, 131,790 Protestants, 101,000 Latin Catholics, and 21,500 Syro-Malabar Catholic rite faithful. There are 85 priests, all indigenous; 72 belong to the secular clergy and 13 to the Capuchin Order. There are about fifteen brothers and some 150 sisters, both native and foreign. There is also a minor seminary. Elementary schools: 58; middle schools: 15; higher schools: 5; vocational school.
Hospitals: 3; various dispensaries; an orphanage; a foundling home. Primary stations: 46; churches: 70; chapels: 72. A small printing press issues the periodical *Catholica Actio*. Catholic Action associations are flourishing.