ELISWA (ELIZABETH VAKAYIL)

Eliswa was born in October 1832.   She was the eldest of eight in a rich religious family from Vypussery (name of family residence) in Ochanthuruth.

At the age of 16, Eliswa (the Malayalam version of Elizabeth), married Vareed Vakayil, an elderly business man from Koonammavu, near Varapuzha.  The Vakayil family was traditionally involved in chukku and other business matters but had also administration control over huge territorial lands in Koonammava.

On the death of her husband, according to custom at the time, the rich widow Eliswa should have remarried.  She refused all such proposals and spent her time in prayer and care of the poor.  She lived in a simple hut with a straw roof, built near the Vakayil home in Koonammavu.

In 1862, Eliswa shared  her desire to serve God with her Parish priest, a young Italian called Fr. Leopoldo.  In 1866, the first nuns in Kerala founded the Congregation of Carmelite Teresians (CTC) under the TOCD.  The first convent was a simple bamboo dwelling in Koonammavi, on land once administered by Vareed Vakayil.  The new Congregation, under Mother Eliswa, had the mission of teaching girls who were without any means of having a proper education. St. Joseph’s LP school in Koonammavu was the first Catholic school for girls in Malabar and Mother Eliswa’s new mission in life became that of teaching young girls.

Following on the separation of the Latin and Syrian Rites in the Church, the school transferred to Varapuzha and St. Joseph’s School  for the girls of Varapuzha was  established.

Mother Eliswa died on 18 July 1913.

The Diocesan tribunal of investigation on the “life, virtues and apparent sanctity” of Eliswa closed on 5 November 2014 and the Decree of Validity was issued on 7 April 2017.