Set among the Nilgiris — the meeting place of the Western and Eastern Ghats — the diocese has grown, since its beginnings under the Paris Foreign Mission, into a communion of Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and English-speaking parishes across the Blue Mountains.
From a single mission handed to the Paris Fathers to a diocese in its own right — the story runs through Pondicherry, Coimbatore and Mysore before arriving in the hills.
On the suppression of the Society of Jesus, the Propagation of Faith entrusts the vast Carnatic Mission to the Fathers of the Paris Foreign Mission, based at Pondicherry.
After years of difficulty, two M.E.P. Fathers are permitted to settle in Karumathampatty, Coimbatore — the first step toward the hills.
One of the Fathers takes charge of the small, growing out-stations of the Coimbatore Mission in the Nilgiris.
The community grows steadily after the ghat road from Mettupalayam to Coonoor is completed, and a small chapel is built to serve it.
With the establishment of the Hierarchy in India by Pope Leo XIII, Coimbatore and Mysore — once shared pro-Vicariates — become dioceses of their own.
The Nilgiris district, until then part of Coimbatore Diocese, is attached to and then reconstituted within the Diocese of Mysore.
By the Apostolic Constitution Nuntiatur in Psalmis of Pope Pius XII, the diocese is carved from Mysore. The Church of the Sacred Heart, Udhagamandalam, is named its Cathedral, with Antony Cardinal Padiyara as first Bishop.
The diocese rises from tea-covered hills to dry plains — each shaping the life and livelihood of its parishes differently.
Where the Western and Eastern Ghats meet, home to Doddabetta — the highest peak of the Eastern Ghats — and source of the river Bhavani.
Lying in Erode district, these hills are wilder country — wildlife-rich and given to hardier cultivation.
Watered by the Cauvery and the Bhavani, this Erode-district plain carries the diocese's warmest, driest parishes.
The Nilgiris sits at the junction of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. Inter-linguistic marriages are common, and Mass is offered in whichever tongue a parish calls home.
Most of the faithful earn their living as daily-wage workers and farmers. Alongside them, the diocese is home to distinct tribal communities across the Nilgiris and Erode districts.
The Urali of Gundri and Makkampalam speak Urali — a language with no written script of its own.
