Celebrating Christmas inside 100-year-old Medak Cathedral built during a famine

Medak Cathedral to mark its 100th year this Christmas. Mettu Deva Prakasham reflects on family history and cathedral's legacy.

On Christmas Day, Mettu Deva Prakasham will step into the Medak Cathedral for the midnight service with a sense of awe and ownership. A hundred years ago, when Reverend Robert H. Posnett and his brother Reverend Charles Walker Posnett held the first service and travelled in a procession led by elephants to mark the first Christmas, Mr. Deva Prakasham’s maternal and paternal grandparents were part of the laity that numbered about 3,000 on that day. They heard the Christmas sermon by Rev. Daniel Napoleon. A hundred years later on December 25, 2024, their grandson will attend the service at Church of South India cathedral.

“It was period of severe famine when my paternal great grandfather came in search of food and work to Medak. The lakes had dried up, there was no rain and there were no food grains, families resorted to selling children. At that time, Mr. Charles Posnett started building a hospital, a school and hostels to create work, and my grandfather Latchiah came from Gopalpet to Medak to work,” says Mr. Deva Prakasham.

People who worked for Rev. Charles Posnett got one meal a day of rice that was imported from Burma (present day Myanmar). The assured food-for-work saw migration by droves of people from the surrounding areas. The numbers were such that the village known as Siddapur in Kakatiya times and Gulshanabad in Nizam’s time became Medak (a corruption of methuku or grain of rice). “The land on which the cathedral stands is a gift of the Nizam,” informs Reverend T. Shantaiah. 

The work on the cathedral began in 1914 when the World War was raging in Europe triggering a widespread diversion of rations from across the the country. Rev. Charles Posnett roped in the services of Messrs Bradshaw, Gass and Hope of Bolton in England for imagining the grand plan he had. By the end of 10 years, the company had shared some 200 plans incorporating different modifications desired by the missionary who landed in India in 1897 and worked for two years at the Garrison Church in Trimulgherry. “He moved to Medak as he wanted to serve people who had more dire need. It was a period of epidemics and famines and Rev. Charles Posnett wanted to serve the people who were suffering,” informs Mr. Shantaiah.

It was at this time that Rev. Charles Posnett started planning and building the cathedral which is counted as among the grandest in the country. Among the apocryphal tales is the height of the cathedral was limited to 173 feet as the Nizam Osman Ali Khan did not want the church to be taller than the Charminar. And so it was.

But inside, no stone was left unturned to create the grandeur. The 200-foot nave is covered with mosaic tiles brought in from England and were affixed by Italian masons who came from Bombay. This is topped by a ceiling that takes the breath away with ribbed squares.

The stained glass panels were added later over a few decades with the first Ascension of Jesus Christ installed in 1927 and the Nativity panel on the eastern side were added in 1947. The final Crucifixion panel went up in 1958 and has the words ‘Yehudion ka Raja’ (King of Jews was added in Hindi language) above the thorny crown and “Nenu bhoomi meeda nundi paiketha badinappudu andarini naa yoddaku cherchukondu” (When I ascend to Heaven, I will gather all people into my fold). The lines in Indian languages was a tip of hat for the newly freed nation.