Pakistan
Pakistan the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the world’s sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 212,742,631 people. In area, it is the 33rd-largest country. Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, China in the far northeast, it is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the northwest, shares a maritime border with Oman. The territory that now constitutes Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures and intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent; the ancient history involves the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, was home to kingdoms ruled by people of different faiths and cultures, including Hindus, Indo-Greeks, Turco-Mongols and Sikhs. The area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Alexander III of Macedon, the Seleucid Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, the Gupta Empire, the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, the Delhi Sultanate, the Mongol Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Afghan Durrani Empire, the Sikh Empire and, most the British Empire.
Pakistan is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. It is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with a diverse geography and wildlife. A dominion, Pakistan adopted a constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic. An ethnic civil war and Indian military intervention in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh. In 1973, Pakistan adopted a new constitution which stipulated that all laws are to conform to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah. A regional and middle power, Pakistan has the sixth-largest standing armed forces in the world and is a nuclear power as well as a declared nuclear-weapons state, the second in South Asia and the only nation in the Muslim world to have that status. Pakistan has a semi-industrialised economy with a well-integrated agriculture sector and a growing services sector, it is ranked among the emerging and growth-leading economies of the world, is backed by one of the world's largest and fastest-growing middle class.
Pakistan's political history since independence has been characterized by periods of military rule, political instability and conflicts with India. The country continues to face challenging problems, including overpopulation, poverty and corruption. Pakistan is a member of the UN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the OIC, the Commonwealth of Nations, the SAARC and the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition; the name Pakistan means "land of the pure" in Urdu and Persian. It alludes to the word pāk meaning pure in Pashto; the suffix ـستان is a Persian word meaning the place of, recalls the synonymous Sanskrit word sthāna स्थान. The name of the country was coined in 1933 as Pakstan by Choudhry Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan Movement activist, who published it in his pamphlet Now or Never, using it as an acronym referring to the names of the five northern regions of British India: Punjab, Kashmir and Baluchistan; the letter i was incorporated to ease pronunciation. Some of the earliest ancient human civilisations in South Asia originated from areas encompassing present-day Pakistan.
The earliest known inhabitants in the region were Soanian during the Lower Paleolithic, of whom stone tools have been found in the Soan Valley of Punjab. The Indus region, which covers most of present day Pakistan, was the site of several successive ancient cultures including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro; the Vedic period was characterised by an Indo-Aryan culture. Multan was an important Hindu pilgrimage centre; the Vedic civilisation flourished in the ancient Gandhāran city of Takṣaśilā, now Taxila in the Punjab, founded around 1000 BCE. Successive ancient empires and kingdoms ruled the region: the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Alexander the Great's empire in 326 BCE and the Maurya Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya and extended by Ashoka the Great, until 185 BCE; the Indo-Greek Kingdom founded by Demetrius of Bactria included Gandhara and Punjab and reached its greatest extent under Menander, prospering the Greco-Buddhist culture in the region.
Taxila had one of the earliest universities and centres of higher education in the world, established during the late Vedic period in 6th century BCE. The school consisted of several monasteries without large dormitories or lecture halls where the religious instruction was provided on an individualistic basis; the ancient university was documented by the invading forces of Alexander the Great, "the like of which had not been seen in Greece," and was recorded by Chinese pilgrims in the 4th or 5th century CE. At its zenith, the Rai Dynasty of Sindh ruled the surrounding territories; the Pala Dynasty was the last Buddhist empire, under Dharmapala and Devapala, stretched across South Asia from what is now Bangladesh through Northern India to Pakistan. The Arab conqueror Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh in 711 CE; the Pakistan government's official chronol
Kandy
Kandy is a major city in Sri Lanka located in the Central Province. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka; the city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations tea. Kandy is both an administrative and religious city and is the capital of the Central Province. Kandy is the home of The Temple of the Tooth Relic, one of the most sacred places of worship in the Buddhist world, it was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1988. The city and the region has been known by many different versions of those names; some scholars suggest that the original name of Kandy was Katubulu Nuwara located near present Watapuluwa. However, the more popular historical name is Senkadagala or Senkadagalapura Senkadagala Siriwardhana Maha Nuwara shortened to'Maha Nuwara'. According to folklore, this name originated from one of the several possible sources. One being the city was named after a brahmin with the name Senkanda who lived in a cave near by, another being a queen of Vikramabahu III was named Senkanda, after a coloured stone named Senkadagala.
The Kingdom of Kandy has been known by various names. The English name Kandy, which originated during the colonial era, is derived from an anglicised version of the Sinhala Kanda Uda Rata or Kanda Uda Pas Rata; the Portuguese shortened this to "Candea", using the name for its capital. In Sinhala, Kandy is called Maha nuwara, meaning "Great City" or "Capital", although this is most shortened to Nuwara. Historical records suggest that Kandy was first established by the Vikramabahu III, the monarch of the Kingdom of Gampola, north of the present city, named Senkadagalapura at the time. Sena Sammatha Wickramabahu was the first king of the Kingdom of Kandy, he was a royal from the Kotte Royal Blood line and ruled Kandy as a semi-independent kingdom under the Kingdom of Kotte, making it the new capital of the Kandyan Kingdom. Sena Sammatha Wickramabahu was followed by his son Jayaweera Astana and by Karaliyadde Bandara, succeeded by his daughter Dona Catherina of Kandy. Dona Catherina was succeeded by Rajasinha I.
Rajasinha I however, preferred to rule the hill country from the Kingdom of Sitawaka on the west of the island. A period of turmoil for power ended with the ascent to the throne by Konappu Bandara who came to be known as Vimaladharmasuriya I. Having embraced Buddhism, he consolidated his authority further by bringing the tooth relic of the Lord Buddha to Kandy from a place called Delgamuwa. In 1592 Kandy became the capital city of the last remaining independent kingdom in the island after the coastal regions had been conquered by the Portuguese. Several invasions by the Portuguese were repelled, most notably in the campaign of Danture. After the Sinhalese–Portuguese War and the establishment of Dutch Ceylon, attempts by the Dutch to conquer the kingdom were repelled; the kingdom tolerated a Dutch presence on the coast of Sri Lanka, although attacks were launched. The most ambitious offensive was undertaken in 1761, when King Kirti Sri Rajasinha attacked and overran most of the coast, leaving only the fortified Negombo intact.
When a Dutch retaliatory force returned to the island in 1763, Kirti Sri Rajasinha abandoned the coastline and withdrew into the interior. When the Dutch continued to the jungles the next year, they were harassed by disease, lack of provisions, Kandyan sharpshooters, who hid in the jungle and inflicted heavy losses on the Dutch; the Dutch launched a better adapted force in January 1765, replacing their troops' bayonets with machetes and using more practical uniforms and tactics suited to jungle warfare. The Dutch were successful in capturing the capital, deserted, the Kandyans withdrew to the jungles once more, refusing to engage in open battle. However, the Dutch were again worn down by constant attrition. A peace treaty was signed in 1766; the Dutch remained in control of the coastal areas until 1796, when Great Britain took them over due to the Kew letters during the Napoleonic wars. British possession of these areas was formalized with the treaty of Amiens in 1802; the next year the British invaded Kandy in what became known as the First Kandyan War, but were repulsed.
As the capital, Kandy had become home to the relic of the tooth of the Buddha which symbolizes a 4th-century tradition that used to be linked to the Sinhalese monarchy, since the protector of the relic was the ruler of the land. Thus the Royal Palace and the Temple of the Tooth were placed in close proximity to each other; the last ruling dynasty of Kandy were the Nayaks. Kandy stayed independent until the early 19th century. In the Second Kandyan War, the British launched an invasion that met no resistance and reached the city on February 10, 1815. On March 2, 1815, a treaty known as the Kandyan Convention was signed between the British and the Radalas. With this treaty, Kandy became a British protectorate; the last king of the kingdom Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was captured and taken as a royal prisoner by the British to Vellore Fort in southern India along with all claimants to the throne. Some of the family members were exiled to Tanjore, their erstwhile living place is still referred to as "Kandy Raja Aranmanai" on the eastern part of Thanjavur town
Alma mater
Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university, school, or college that one attended. In US usage it can mean the school from which one graduated; the phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Fine arts will depict educational institutions using a robed woman as a visual metaphor. Before its current usage, alma mater was an honorific title for various Latin mother goddesses Ceres or Cybele, in Catholicism for the Virgin Mary, it entered academic usage when the University of Bologna adopted the motto Alma Mater Studiorum, which describes its heritage as the oldest operating university in the Western world. It is related to alumnus, a term used for a university graduate that means a "nursling" or "one, nourished". Although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele and other mother goddesses, it was not used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. In the Oxford Latin Dictionary, the phrase is attributed to Lucretius' De rerum natura, where it is used as an epithet to describe an earth goddess: After the fall of Rome, the term came into Christian liturgical usage in association with the Virgin Mary.
"Alma Redemptoris Mater" is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary. The earliest documented use of the term to refer to a university in an English-speaking country is in 1600, when the University of Cambridge printer, John Legate, began using an emblem for the university's press; the device's first-known appearance is on the title-page of William Perkins' A Golden Chain, where the Latin phrase Alma Mater Cantabrigia is inscribed on a pedestal bearing a nude, lactating woman wearing a mural crown. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is cited in 1710, when an academic mother figure is mentioned in a remembrance of Henry More by Richard Ward. Many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name; the University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. Other European universities, such as the Alma Mater Lipsiensis in Leipzig, Germany, or Alma Mater Jagiellonica, have used the expression in conjunction with geographical or foundational characteristics.
At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, an international university founded by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2010, uses the term as its official name. In the United States, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, has been called the "Alma Mater of the Nation" because of its ties to the country's founding. At Queen's University in Kingston and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the main student government is known as the Alma Mater Society; the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses. For example, in the United States: there is a well-known bronze statue of Alma Mater by Daniel Chester French situated on the steps of Columbia University's Low Library. An altarpiece mural in Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library, painted in 1932 by Eugene Savage, depicts the Alma Mater as a bearer of light and truth, standing in the midst of the personified arts and sciences.
Outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. The statue was cast in 1919 by Mario Korbel, with Feliciana Villalón Wilson as the inspiration for Alma Mater, it was installed in its current location in 1927, at the direction of architect Raul Otero. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
Holy orders
In the Christian churches, holy orders are ordained ministries such as bishop, priest, or deacon, the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders include the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, Old Catholic, Independent Catholic and some Lutheran churches. Except for Lutherans and some Anglicans, these churches regard ordination as a sacrament; the Anglo-Catholic tradition within Anglicanism identifies more with the Roman Catholic position about the sacramental nature of ordination. Denominations have varied conceptions of holy orders. In the Anglican churches and some Lutheran churches the traditional orders of bishop and deacon are bestowed using ordination rites; the extent to which ordination is considered sacramental in these traditions has, been a matter of some internal dispute. Baptists are among the denominations that do not consider ministry as being sacramental in nature and would not think of it in terms of "holy orders" as such.
The word "order" designated an established civil body or corporation with a hierarchy, ordinatio meant legal incorporation into an ordo. The word "holy" refers to the Church. In context, therefore, a holy order is set apart for ministry in the Church. Other positions, such as pope, cardinal, archbishop, archpriest, hieromonk and archdeacon, are not sacramental orders but specialized ministries; the Eastern Orthodox Church considers ordination to be a Sacred Mystery. Although all other mysteries may be performed by a presbyter, ordination may only be conferred by a bishop, ordination of a bishop may only be performed by several bishops together. Cheirotonia always takes place during the Divine Liturgy, it was the mission of the Apostles to go forth into all the world and preach the Gospel, baptizing those who believed in the name of the Holy Trinity. In the Early Church those who presided over congregations were referred to variously as episcopos or presbyteros; these successors of the Apostles were ordained to their office by the laying on of hands, according to Orthodox theology formed a living, organic link with the Apostles, through them with Jesus Christ himself.
This link is believed to continue in unbroken succession to this day. Over time, the ministry of bishops and presbyters or priests came to be distinguished. In Orthodox terminology, priesthood or sacerdotal refers to the ministry of priests; the Eastern Orthodox Church has ordination to minor orders, performed outside of the Divine Liturgy by a bishop, although certain archimandrites of stavropegial monasteries may bestow cheirothesia on members of their communities. A bishop is the collector of the money of the diocese and the living Vessel of Grace through whom the energeia of the Holy Spirit flows into the rest of the church. A bishop is consecrated through the laying on of hands by several bishops; the consecration of a bishop takes place near the beginning of the Liturgy, since a bishop can, in addition to performing the Mystery of the Eucharist ordain priests and deacons. Before the commencement of the Holy Liturgy, the bishop-elect professes, in the middle of the church before the seated bishops who will consecrate him, in detail the doctrines of the Orthodox Christian Faith and pledges to observe the canons of the Apostles and Councils, the Typikon and customs of the Orthodox Church and to obey ecclesiastical authority.
After the Little Entrance, the arch-priest and arch-deacon conduct the bishop-elect before the Royal Gates where he is met by the bishops and kneels before the altar on both knees. The Gospel Book is laid over his head and the consecrating bishops lay their hands upon the Gospel Book, while the prayers of ordination are read by the eldest bishop. After this, the newly consecrated bishop ascends the synthranon for the first time. Customarily, the newly consecrated bishop ordains a priest and a deacon at the Liturgy during which he is consecrated. A priest may serve only at the pleasure of his bishop. A bishop bestows faculties giving a priest an antimins; the ordination of a priest occurs before the Anaphora in order that he may on the same day take part in the celebration of the Eucharist: During the Great Entrance, the candidate for ordination carries the Aër over his head as a symbol of giving up his diaconate, comes last in the procession and stands at the end of the pair of lines of the priests.
After the Aër is taken from the candidate to cover the chalice and diskos, a chair is brought for the bishop to sit on by the northeast corner of the Holy Table. Two deacons go to priest-elect who, at that point, had been standing alone in the middle of the church, bow him down to the west and to the east, asking their consent by saying “Command ye!” and lead him through the holy doors of the altar where the archdeacon asks the bishop’s co
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan plateau. It is third-largest state by area in India. Spread over 307,713 km2, it is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south and Chhattisgarh to the east and Dadra and Nagar Haveli to the north west, Madhya Pradesh to the north, it is the world's second-most populous subnational entity. It was formed by merging the western and south-western parts of the Bombay State and Vidarbha, the north-western parts of the Hyderabad State and splitting Saurashtra by the States Reorganisation Act, it has over 112 million inhabitants and its capital, has a population around 18 million making it the most populous urban area in India. Nagpur hosts the winter session of the state legislature. Pune is known as'Oxford of the East' due to the presence of several well-known educational institutions; the Godavari and the Krishna are the two major rivers in the state.
The Narmada and Tapi Rivers flow near Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. Maharashtra is the third-most urbanized state of India. Prior to Indian independence, Maharashtra was chronologically ruled by the Satavahana dynasty, Rashtrakuta dynasty, Western Chalukyas, Deccan sultanates and Marathas, the British. Ruins, tombs and places of worship left by these rulers are dotted around the state, they include the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the Ellora caves. The numerous forts are associated with the life of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Maharashtra is the wealthiest state by all major economic parameters and the most industrialized state in India; the state continues to be the single largest contributor to the national economy with a share of 15% in the country's gross domestic product. Maharashtra accounts for 17% of the industrial output of the country and 16% of the country's service sector output; the economy of Maharashtra is the largest state economy in India with ₹27.96 lakh crore in GDP and a per capita GDP of ₹180,000.
The modern Marathi language developed from the Maharashtri Prakrit, the word Marhatta is found in the Jain Maharashtri literature. The terms Maharashtra, Maharashtri and Maratha may have derived from the same root. However, their exact etymology is uncertain; the most accepted theory among the linguistic scholars is that the words Maratha and Maharashtra derived from a combination of Maha and rashtrika, the name of a tribe or dynasty of petty chiefs ruling in the Deccan region. Another theory is that the term is derived from Maha and ratha / rathi, which refers to a skilful northern fighting force that migrated southward into the area. An alternative theory states that the term derives from Rashtra. However, this theory is somewhat controversial among modern scholars who believe it to be the Sanskritised interpretation of writers. Chalcolithic sites belonging to the Jorwe culture have been discovered throughout the state. Maharashtra was ruled by the Maurya Empire in the fourth and third centuries BCE.
Around 230 BCE, Maharashtra came under the rule of the Satavahana dynasty for 400 years. The greatest ruler of the Satavahana dynasty was Gautamiputra Satakarni. In 90 CE, son of the Satavahana king Satakarni, the "Lord of Dakshinapatha, wielder of the unchecked wheel of Sovereignty", made Junnar, 30 miles north of Pune, the capital of his kingdom; the state was ruled by Western Satraps, Gupta Empire, Gurjara-Pratihara, Kadambas, Chalukya Empire, Rashtrakuta Dynasty, Western Chalukya before the Yadava rule. The Buddhist Ajanta Caves in present-day Aurangabad display influences from the Satavahana and Vakataka style; the caves were excavated during this period. The Chalukya dynasty ruled from the sixth to the eighth centuries CE, the two prominent rulers were Pulakeshin II, who defeated the north Indian Emperor Harsha, Vikramaditya II, who defeated the Arab invaders in the eighth century; the Rashtrakuta dynasty ruled Maharashtra from the eighth to the tenth century. The Arab traveller Sulaiman described the ruler of the Rashtrakuta Dynasty as "one of the four great kings of the world".
Shilahara dynasty began as vassals of the Rashtrakuta dynasty which ruled the Deccan plateau between the eighth and tenth centuries. From the early 11th century to the 12th century, the Deccan Plateau, which includes a significant part of Maharashtra, was dominated by the Western Chalukya Empire and the Chola dynasty. Several battles were fought between the Western Chalukya empire and the Chola dynasty in the Deccan Plateau during the reigns of Raja Raja Chola I, Rajendra Chola I, Jayasimha II, Someshvara I, Vikramaditya VI. In the early 14th century, the Yadava Dynasty, which ruled most of present-day Maharashtra, was overthrown by the Delhi Sultanate ruler Ala-ud-din Khalji. Muhammad bin Tughluq conquered parts of the Deccan, temporarily shifted his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in Maharashtra. After the collapse of the Tughluqs in 1347, the local Bahmani Sultanate of Gulbarga took over, governing the region for the next 150 years. After the break-up of the Bahamani sultanate in 1518, Maharashtra split into five Deccan Sultanates: Nizamshah of Ahmednagar, Adilshah of Bijapur, Qutubshah of Golkonda, Bidarshah of Bidar and Imadshah of Elichpur.
These kingdoms fought with each other. United, they decisively defeated the
Bandra
Bandra is a coastal suburb located on Salsette Island in Maharashtra, India. The suburb is located to the immediate north of the Mithi River, which separates Bandra from Mumbai City, it is the third-largest commercial hub in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune aided by the Bandra-Kurla Complex. Additionally, many personalities who are active in Bollywood and politics reside in the city; the name "Bandra" originates from the Persian and Urdu word for port, or "bandar." It is described by Duncan Forbes's A Dictionary and English' as "a city. In Marathi, Bandra is known as Vandre, which means'port' and is derived from the same Urdu/Persian word; the area was under the rule of the Silhara dynasty in the 12th century. Bandra was a tiny fishing village inhabited by farmers, it was acquired by the British East India Company while the rest of Mumbai belonged to the Portuguese. In 1534, a sea captain, Diego da Silveira, entered Bandra's creek and burned the fishing town he found there. With that, Bandra came under the rule of the Portuguese crown.
This turmoil was the start of a long period of Christianization of Bandra. Father Manuel Gomes, a Catholic priest, was instrumental in increasing the Church's prominence in Bandra. In 1580, he baptized 2,000 fishermen. By the time he died 11 years Father Gomes' "invincible strength of soul", as one historian describes it, had helped convert close to 6,000 people in the area. Father Gomes established St. Andrew's Church. Bandra became a Portuguese possession when the Sultanate of Cambay ceded the region in the Treaty of St. Matthew, signed aboard the Portuguese brig Sao Mateus in Baçaim harbor in 1534 and aided by Governor-General Nuno da Cunha and Diego da Silveira; the Portuguese enfeoffed Bandra, Kurla and four other villages in 1548 to António Pessoa as a reward for his military services. This was confirmed by the Royal Chancellery on 2 February 1550; as these villages were given for a period of'two lives', they reverted to the Crown after the death of Isabel Botelha, Pessoa's widow. The Jesuits, who had applied for acquisition of these villages in anticipation of Isabel's death, obtained them from the viceroy in 1568 and received royal confirmation in 1570.
In 1661, when King Charles married Catherine of Portugal, the island of Mumbai was given to England as part of the dowry. However, Salsette Island, on which Bandra lay, was not part of this treaty and remained with the Portuguese; the Portuguese built additional churches in Bandra, one of the earliest being St. Andrew's Church in 1575, their Jesuit missionaries, who learned local languages and cultures, attracted many Indian converts to Catholicism among the villagers on the island. Their descendants continued to support the six Catholic parish churches—Mount Carmel, St. Peter's, St. Andrew's, St. Theresa's, St. Anne's and St. Francis d'Assisi—that lie within an area of four square kilometres. Bandra became part of English territory with the signing of the Treaty of Surat in 1775, but was retroceded to the Marathas in 1779 during the First Anglo-Maratha War. In 1802, Bajirao II signed the Treaty of Bassein with the English, surrendering sovereignty and again ceding Bandra, it remained under British control until 14 August 1947.
On 12 April 1867, the first railway service was inaugurated, with one train per day between Virar and Mumbai. Six years it was increased to 24 each day; as of 2018, 940 trains stop daily at Bandra. As late as the 1930s, Bandra had only one bus service from Pali Naka, Hill Road to the Railway station. Other people just walked to the nearest railway station. After World War II, the building boom began to accommodate immigrants. Bandra was raised to the status of a municipality in 1876 and was expanded. In 1950, following independence, it was merged into the Bombay Municipal Corporation to form the Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay. Bandra consisted of many villages, among them Sherly, Rajan, Waroda, Boran and Chuim; these have been lost to urban development of the island. The Catholic chapel of Mount Mary was built around 1640 by the Portuguese; the chapel was destroyed in 1738 by the Marathas during their invasion. The statue of the Virgin was recovered from the sea by fishermen and temporarily installed in St. Andrew's Church, before being shifted to the rebuilt Mount Mary's Church in 1761.
2018 marked the beginning of the "Feast of Our Lady of the Mount" known as the "Monti Fest" or the "Bandra Feast". To this day, the statue is venerated and many miracles and major, are attributed to the Lady of the Mount; the architect of Mount Mary's Church was Bombay architect Shahpoorjee Chandabhoy. The basilica was built in 1904 at a cost of INR 1 lakh; the original church was built to serve the garrison posted at the Castella de Aguada at Land's End, Bandra. In 1879, Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy constructed a flight of steps to Mount Mary's Church. People of all faiths and communities visit the church; the Bandra Fair is held during the eight days of the Octave of the Nativity of Our Lady, beginning 8 September, when pilgrims throng the church. The first school founded in Bandra after Mumbai passed on to the English was St Andrew's Parish School, started by Fr. Francisco de Melo in 1780 to teach catechism to the children of the parish; this became St. Andrew's High School; the school is located in Bandra West.
St. Theresa's High School grew out of St. Andrew's Indian Christians' School, housed in a dilapidated building situated in Old Khar; this school was founded in 1918. It was t
Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, was head of the Catholic Church from 2 March 1939 to his death. Before his election to the papacy, he served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany, Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany. While the Vatican was neutral during World War II, Pius XII maintained links to the German Resistance, used diplomacy to aid the victims of the war and lobby for peace, spoke out against race-based murders and other atrocities; the Reichskonkordat and his leadership of the Catholic Church during the war remain the subject of controversy—including allegations of public silence and inaction about the fate of the Jews. After the war, he advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies towards former Axis and Axis-satellite nations, he was a staunch opponent of Communism and of the Italian Communist Party.
During his papacy, the Church issued the Decree against Communism, declaring that Catholics who profess Communist doctrine are to be excommunicated as apostates from the Christian faith. In turn, the Church experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the Eastern Bloc, he explicitly invoked ex cathedra papal infallibility with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his Apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus. His magisterium includes 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts, his forty-one encyclicals include the Church as the Body of Christ. He eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals in 1946. After his 1958 death, he was succeeded by Pope John XXIII. In the process toward sainthood, his cause for canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 by Pope Paul VI during the final session of the Second Vatican Council, he was made a Servant of God by Pope John Paul II in 1990 and Pope Benedict XVI declared Pius XII Venerable on 19 December 2009. Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was born on 2 March 1876 in Rome into a family of intense Catholic piety with a history of ties to the papacy.
His parents were Virginia Pacelli. His grandfather, Marcantonio Pacelli, had been Under-Secretary in the Papal Ministry of Finances and Secretary of the Interior under Pope Pius IX from 1851 to 1870 and helped found the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano in 1861, his cousin, Ernesto Pacelli, was a key financial advisor to Pope Leo XIII. Together with his brother Francesco and his two sisters and Elisabetta, he grew up in the Parione district in the centre of Rome. Soon after the family had moved to Via Vetrina in 1880 he began school at the convent of the French Sisters of Divine Providence in the Piazza Fiammetta; the family worshipped at Chiesa Nuova. Eugenio and the other children made their First Communion at this church and Eugenio served there as an altar boy from 1886. In 1886 too he was sent to the private school of Professor Giuseppe Marchi, close to the Piazza Venezia. In 1891 Pacelli's father sent Eugenio to the Liceo Ennio Quirino Visconti Institute, a state school situated in what had been the Collegio Romano, the premier Jesuit university in Rome.
In 1894, aged 18, Pacelli began his theology studies at Rome's oldest seminary, the Almo Collegio Capranica, in November of the same year, registered to take a philosophy course at the Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University and theology at the Pontifical Roman Athenaeum S. Apollinare, he was enrolled at the State University, La Sapienza where he studied modern languages and history. At the end of the first academic year however, in the summer of 1895, he dropped out of both the Capranica and the Gregorian University. According to his sister Elisabetta, the food at the Capranica was to blame. Having received a special dispensation he continued his studies from home and so spent most of his seminary years as an external student. In 1899 he completed his education in Sacred Theology with a doctoral degree awarded on the basis of a short dissertation and an oral examination in Latin. While all other candidates from the Rome diocese were ordained in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Pacelli was ordained a priest on Easter Sunday, 2 April 1899 alone in the private chapel of a family friend the Vicegerent of Rome, Mgr Paolo Cassetta.
Shortly after ordination he began postgraduate studies in canon law at Sant'Apollinaire. He received his first assignment as a curate at Chiesa Nuova. In 1901 he entered the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, a sub-office of the Vatican Secretariat of State. Monsignor Pietro Gasparri, the appointed undersecretary at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, had underscored his proposal to Pacelli to work in the "Vatican's equivalent of the Foreign office" by highlighting the "necessity of defending the Church from the onslaughts of secularism and liberalism throughout Europe". Pacelli became an apprentice, in Gasparri's department. In January 1901 he was chosen, by Pope Leo XIII himself, according to an official account, to deliver condolences on behalf of the Vatican to King Edward VII of the UK
Cardinal-Priest
Indian
