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St. Joseph Pontifical Seminary Mangalapuzha

Seminary of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church

St. Joseph Pontifical Seminary Mangalapuzha is a Major seminary of the Syro-Malabar Church of the St. Thomas Christians. It is the continuation of several Seminaries and the outcome of the centralization of the priestly formation in Kerala. It has a long history of untiring service and selfless sacrifice of several missionaries, native clergy and laity. Until the sixteenth century the St. Thomas Christians of Kerala followed the general system of education of Malabar known as 'Gurukulavasam', which means living with the teacher. Such a system of the formation of the clergy was known as Malpanate.

A boy who aspires to priesthood inscribes himself as the disciple of a Malpan (teacher) who was generally the parish priest himself or the elderly Priest of the parish. Under such Malpans the candidate learns to read and understand Syriac, the liturgical language, and to interpret the Sacred Scriptures. Besides these Magnates there certain educational centres were selected few were trained. Angamali was a training centre of the clerics who came from all parts of Malabar. The very names of the books mentioned by the synod of Diamper (1599) show that the clergy of the pre-Diamper period were keeping a rather high standard of learning in scripture and other ecclesiastical matters.