Indian Capital Celebrates 100 Glorious Years

December 13, 2011: On Monday the Capital city of India, Delhi completed 100 years of its existence and also marked the centenary of the third and last ‘Mass Assembly’ or Durbar held in 1911. That year the imperial capital was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi and has since remained the seat of political activity.
King George V and Queen Mary were crowned the Emperor and Empress of India at the Delhi Durbar or mass assembly on Dec 12. The foundation of the new city was laid Dec 15, three days after the coronation.
The capital was named New Delhi in 1927 and was formally inaugurated on Feb 13, 1931, said R V Smith, historian and writer. Two British architects -Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker - laid out the architectural map of the city.
St. James’ Church, built in the 1830s, is one of the oldest surviving British buildings in the city, he said.
Christianity has also deepened its roots over the century in Delhi. It has been a saga of great enterprise -for the spread of education, social, philanthropic, and health facilities with the aid of hospitals like Holy Family and St. Stephen’s, said Smith.
The largest number of schools and colleges are run by minority Christians which has brought manifold development in all spheres of life.
Seventy years after the erection of St. Mary’s Church, the Sacred Heart Cathedral was built and blessed on December 8, 1935.
In 1910, by a Degree of the Sacred Congregation of Faith, Shimla Archdiocese was erected.
Twenty-seven years later portions of Punjab which were under the Archdiocese of Agra were added to the Archdiocese of Shimla.
With this addition, the Archdiocese was renamed as Archdiocese of Delhi-Shimla.
In 1959, the Archdiocese was bifurcated into two separate ecclesiastical units, Diocese of Shimla-Chandigarh and Archdiocese of Delhi and both were handed over to the Diocese clergy.
At the time of the bifurcation, in 1959, the Archdiocese of Delhi had only 10 churches. At present there are 41 parishes, most of them in the Capital itself, Smith added.