Parish

The Parish was bifurcated from Lourdes Shrine Parish, Perambur, on 2nd February 1965 by His Grace, Dr Louis Mathias, SDB, Archbishop of Madras-Mylapore. The archbishop entrusted the work of locating the land for the Church and establishing a Parish to Fr Orpheus Mantovani, an Italian missionary and the saintly founder of this Centre. Fr. Mantovani wanted to start a new mission in the poorest quarters of Chennai. After surveying the present locality, he purchased the present site measuring 6 acres. At that time there were no concrete buildings and roads etc. This was a vast slum area with huts and other small residences with a lot of repatriates from Burma. The archbishop appointed Fr. Mantovani as the first Parish Priest and granted him permission to start a private Parish School to give Christian education to the children. On 25th June 1965, the great Salesian missionary Fr. Mantovani erected temporary sheds to house the lepers and abandoned sick people. These sheds were blessed by Rev. Fr. John Gibas from U.S.A. on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. After the sudden death of Fr Mantovani on 19th May 1967, Rev. Fr. Francis Schlooz SDB, another great missionary and lover of the poor, took charge as the Parish Priest; many developments took place under his leadership for 13 years.

The parish now has three sub-stations:
M.M Garden (Our Lady of Rosary Church)
Kanigapuram (Don Bosco’s Church)
Sanjay Nagar (St. Joseph’s Church)

Presently there are 622 registered families with 24 Pious associations. Salesian Co-operators, Vincent De Paul Society, Legion of Mary, Charismatic Prayer Groups, Sunday school for Children, and youth services, Altar boys and girls are some of the regular activities of the parish.