Manarcad Cathedral

Manarcad Marth Maryam Cathedral or St. Mary’s Cathedral, is a Syrian Orthodox church located about 9 km from the town of Kottayam in Kerala, India and a destination for people on annual pilgrimages seeking the blessings of the Virgin Mary.There are more than 2000 families in this parish and it is one of the largest Christian parishes in Kerala. Considered to be one of the ancient churches in the Malankara area, the Manarkad Cathedral is famous for a variety of reasons. The church has many stome inscriptions. According to these church inscriptions, there was an ancient church built at this place about one thousand years back. The inscriptions that have been found by archaeologists were basically memorial stones that were built on the tombs between 910 AD and 920 AD. The writings on these stones are in Tamil and Malayalam language that was prevalent during the period before 600 years.