PREFECTURE OF SIKKIM. - It is located in northeastern India. On July 3, 1883 and March 20, 1912, respectively, British Bhutan, constituting the civil district of Kalimpong, and a part of independent Sikkim, a region still closed to any missionary penetration, were annexed to the apostolic vicariate of Tibet (later the apostolic vicariate of Tatsienlu, now the diocese of Kangting in China).
These territories, with the other part of Sikkim, belonging to the archdiocese of Calcutta, added to them, were erected on February 15, 1929 as a mission sui iuris, entrusted to the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris and declared a suffragan of Calcutta, then elevated to an apostolic prefecture on June 16, 1931. The first missionary station was founded in 1872 at Pedong by Fr. Cesgotin. His companion in the apostolate, Fr. Moussot, was killed in Tibet on July 2, 1901. In 1934 the missionaries sent by the abbey of St. Maurice of Agaunum arrived at Pedong, and in 1937, with the appointment of the current apostolic prefect, the apostolic prefecture passed in fact to the Canons Regular of that same abbey, which, in order to make the mission known, has published L'Echo du S. since 1936.
It has an area of 8,400 sq km and borders the dioceses of Shillong, Jalpaiguri, Patna, the archdiocese of Calcutta and Tibet. The population reaches 200,000 inhabitants, of whom barely 1,700 are Catholics. The rest consists of Buddhists from Tibet, Hindus who emigrated from Nepal, and animist aborigines. Christian penetration is extremely difficult. The apostolic prefecture is divided into 6 primary stations and several secondary stations; there are 6 chapels. Instruction is provided in 13 elementary schools with about 350 pupils and in 3 middle schools with 120 students. There labor about twenty priests, of whom 4 are secular while the others belong to the Canons Regular of the abbey of St. Maurice of Agaunum (Switzerland); 2 native seminarians study at the Pontifical Seminary of Kandy. About 20 Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny assist the missionaries, 3 of them foreign and the rest native. Charitable work is carried out in 5 dispensaries, 1 hospital, 2 orphanages, and 1 home for the aged.
