St. Anthony Church Mankhurd

The Catholic Directory of the Archdiocese of Bombay has documented that the Church of St. Anthony was erected in Mankhurd before 1585 and thus making this Church one of the earliest established in Mumbai. It was the Franciscan Missionaries from Portugal, who on their arrival in India in 1550 built the Church and according to the Franciscans Custodial lists of 1585, a Rector was appointed for the house of St. Anthony. The present day Makhurd was formerly known as Mani / Mane village and was part of the island of Trombay which was under the administration of Portuguese since 1534. Later on the villages of Trombay, Deonar, Mani, Nanale and Magdalem became part of the Parish.

St. Anthony’s is one of the three Churches erected in the island of Trombay by the Portuguese Franciscans. The Church located on the Trombay hill was dedicated to Our Lady of Health and is believed to have been built in 1550s. The ruins of the Church are still standing and the premises now belong to Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. The statue of Our Lady of Health from this Church is now kept at the altar of the Church of St. Anthony. Mandala Hill festival is celebrated on the First Sunday of May and parishioners gather at this site in good numbers for worship. The third one in Marouli dedicated to St. Sebastian and was built before 1630.

The tensions resulted by the establishment of the double jurisdiction system in 18th Century forced the Franciscans to leave Bombay and the care of the Mani parish fell to secular clergy. In 1907, the two churches were taken care by the Vicar of Marouli with the consent of Bishop of Daman. In 1967 the church was extended in length to 50 feet by the then Parish Priest Fr. Vincent Gonsalves. Blessing and inauguration of the new Church building with Parochial House was done on April 27, 2002. (Please add here the herculean task of building the new church under the stewardship of Fr. Saby Correa) . Today the parish has grown far and caters to the spiritual need of the Catholic population of about 500 families from Cheeta Camp, PMGP, Deonar, Lallubhai, Anushaktinagar, Mankhurd,etc.