Interviewer – Basil, would you share with us a bit about your roots, your family and early education?

Basil – My parents are from Kerala, in south India. They came to the Unites States and settled in New Jersey in 1987, where I was born and lived until I was three years old. Then, we moved to India and lived in Kerala for a few years before returning to the United States. After living in New York for five years, we moved to Georgia where we have been since 2004.

My father, Rev. Mathai Puthukkunnathu, is a Syrian Orthodox priest under the Malankara Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church in North America and works for the United Behavioral Health Department of United Healthcare. My mother, Julie, is a pharmacy technician at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. My sister, Ashley, is currently settled in New York with her husband Rev. Dn. Belson Kuriakose.

I started school when I was living in India, but only completed one year there since we moved back to the United States the next year. I attended public schools in New York and Georgia and attended the Gwinnett School of Math, Science and Technology for high School, from which I graduated in 2011.

At Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, near Paris, a floating parish run by the Assumptionists responds to the need of offering hospitality to hundreds of homeless Tibetan refugees.

Two Tibetan women walk on-board calmly, each wearing the same easily recognizable back-pack. In the chapel of the barge community known as Je sers ("I serve"), they were told that here they would not be turned away. From the foothills of the Himalayas of Nepal across the beaten roads of India, the name of this stopover circulates among the diaspora. Here, on the banks of the Seine, at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, north of Paris, the door stays open.

All the places are taken

It is Hugues Fresneau, director of this floating establishment, who receives them in his office. In his cramped quarters where files are piled on top of each other, a photo of Pope Francis hangs next to one of the Dalai Lama. Embarrassed, he says, "We aren't the solution; nevertheless, we can't stand by twiddling our thumbs".

Father all-powerful, your gifts of love are countless and your goodness infinite. We come before you this Thanksgiving with gratitude for your kindness, open our hearts to have concern for every man, woman and child, so that we may share your gifts in loving service. 
(Collect -Thanksgiving Day Liturgy)

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

The martyrdom of our three Assumptionist Bulgarian Martyrs was remembered and honored at a recent prayer day by our two lay Assumptionist groups, representing about twenty members, in Worcester, MA, thanks to the hospitality of our retirement community on Old English Road.

The day was facilitated by Fr. Claude Grenache, A.A. who presented the  rich and long standing history of the congregation in Eastern Europe and the circumstances of the events that led up to the execution of Fathers Kamen Vitchev, Pavel Djidjov and Josaphat Chichkov during the communist regime on November 11, 1952. Their death sentence was the result of a trumped-up trial wherein these priests were accused of spying for the Vatican, plotting an uprising and being agents of capitalism. Along with them was the execution of a Passionist, Bishop Bossilkov. All four martyrs were buried in a common grave. Their bodies have never been found.

The presence of Assumptionists in Bulgaria since 1863 reflects the keen interest of Fr. d’Alzon in Church unity. He was passionate about doing all he could to heal the schism between the East and West.