5 months ago
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Kerala marked Christmas connected Thursday (December 25, 2025) with joyousness and solemn prayers, arsenic churches crossed the authorities saw ample gatherings of worshippers.
Special prayers began connected Wednesday evening and concluded with midnight masses. Thousands of faithful attended services successful churches crossed the state, marking 1 of the astir important days successful the Christian calendar.
The caput of the Syro-Malabar Church Raphael Thattil led Christmas prayers astatine Mount St Thomas successful Kakkanad, Kochi.
Addressing the faithful, Thattil said beingness would bring galore challenges, but radical should find spot by turning to Christ, who was calved successful a humble manger. He said religion gives the courageousness to emergence supra difficulties.
He added that Christmas opens caller doors of anticipation and possibilities, and that the festival should animate radical to determination guardant with renewed faith, guided by the airy of the Christmas star.
The celebrations, however, were held amid increasing interest implicit reports of attacks connected Christians and Christmas events successful antithetic parts of the country. The Major Archbishop of the Malankara Catholic Church Cardinal Baselios Cleemis described the situation, wherever believers are allegedly forced to unrecorded successful fearfulness successful respective regions, arsenic highly serious.
He reminded radical that Christmas is simply a time of anticipation and joy, and said believers should beryllium capable to observe freely without fear.
He besides said determination were deliberate attempts to trim the value of Christmas, but stressed that the connection of Christ could ne'er beryllium erased from the land.
Calling for peace, helium urged radical to commune for those spreading hatred and appealed to those successful powerfulness to govern with justness and a consciousness of responsibility.
