Visakhapatnam Province Generally/Dearly Called as the Mother Province Gave Birth to Many Provinces in India & Abroad.
The early missionaries have to undergo lot of struggles due to new place, culture, language, inclement weather, unavailability of the proper medical facilities, lack of means of communication, reluctance on the part of the people, etc.
In those days there were no proper roads, no buses not even trains, the mode of travel was either walking or by bullock carts. There were missionaries who spent most of their life travelling in bullock carts.
Another discouraging moment for the early missionaries in India was the sad demise of their Superior & Leader Fr. Martin on 5th May 1846 at Yanam due to sun-stroke within four months of their arrival in India. It was Fr. Joseph Lavorel, who replaced him to guide the confreres in India.
Year after year many missionaries came from France and learnt the local languages and worked tirelessly preaching the word of God. It was in 1887 the original mission of Vizag or the diocese of Vizag into two dioceses namely Vizag and Nagpur.
In 1930 regions came into existence in the M.S.F.S. Congregation outside the European main land; henceforth here the M.S.F.S. unit began to be known as Visakhapatnam region.
As the flow of the French missionaries diminished, there was a great need of local vocations for the Vizag mission. In that context, from 1927, the then bishop of Vizag, Most Rev. Peter Rosillon encouraged vocations from India especially from Kerala, the ‘goldmine’ of vocations. According to the then prevailing situations, those who joined Visakhapatnam mission naturally became M.S.F.S. Therefore, till 1962 the Visakhapatnam diocese and Visakhapatnam region of M.S.F.S were almost synonymous.
Rev. Fr. K. E. Zacharias was the first Indian Regional Superior and he took charge of the region in 1951 and it was he who opened the first M.S.F.S. Minor Seminary in India (Kerala) and promoted vocations from India.
Thereafter, Visakhapatnam region became Province in 1965 and Rev. Fr. Devasia Kuzhuppil was appointed as the first Provincial. The raising of the region to the Status of the Province in 1965, also has really helped the autonomy drive of the Congregation and for its rapid progress. Soon the province extended its activities to all the Southern States of India and also to the North East India.
Thus the marvelous growth of Visakhapatnam Province helped the M.S.F.S. Congregation to spread out and to assist the local Churches and the Universal Church to stabilize and to expand. Now the Visakhapatnam province is actively involved in various apostolates in India and abroad: Evangelization, Education, Formation, Vocational training and other innovative ministries, apart from Parish missions and Foreign missions like in Papua New Guinea, West Indies, Canada, Australia and Europe.
