St Dominic de Guzman (1171-1221) was a fervent religious, a grace-filled preacher, a wise innovator and a tireless missionary. Seeing the pressing needs of the church of his time, he banded together a small group of brothers who wanted to share his mission of preaching. In 1217 the year after his new Rule and Order had been approved by Honorius III for preaching the Good News and the salvation of souls, he took the courageous risk of scattering his small group of sixteen brothers to various emerging cities of Europe especially those that had important university centers. These men were to pray, study, preach and found communities of brothers that would be known as “Sacred Preaching”. 

St Dominic’s bold and innovative vision drew many young men, especially university students, to become his collaborators in his own life-time. His life was cut short in 1221 by the fatigue and exhaustion of his constant journeys on foot in poverty preaching the word of God, especially in Southern France and Northern Italy. But soon after his death Dominican missionaries had fanned out throughout Europe and beyond its borders. In 1291, just seventy years after St Dominic’s death, the first Dominican missionary Niccolo de Pistoia, Italy, arrived in Mylapore, South India, with the Franciscan John of Monte Corvno. They were on their way to China. Niccolo died in Mylapore working among the small Christian communities he founded as well as established there later in 1321, Jordon of Severac (Catalani) came to Thane, near Mumbai (Bombay), from Jabriz in Persia. His four Franciscan companions were martyred at Thane that same year. Jordan, then laboured alone strengthening the small Christian communities that he set up along the west coast of India. He pleaded, by letter, with his Dominican brothers in Jabriz to send him help. His request was answered by some zealous brothers who came to India as missionaries. In 1328 he visited Avignon to appraise Pope John XXII of the needs of the Indian mission and the opportunities it afforded. The Pope appointed him the first Latin rite Bishop of Quilon (Kollam) that same year. Jordan returned to India where he laboured untiringly until his death in 1330. he wrote a short work entitled MIRABILIA DESCRIPTA – THE WONDERS OF THE EAST which he hoped would encourage missionaries to come to India.

The next name history gives us is that of Jordan of Severac of Catelan. He was a member of a special group of Dominicans working in the Middle East. With four Francis­cans he journeyed over-land to the end of the Persian Gulf and then to India by sea. The party landed at Thana near Bombay where they were welcomed by a Nestorian family. While Jor­dan was absent on a preaching mission, the four Franciscans suffered martyrdom. Having buried them, Jordan then set up his own headquarters at Thana. That was about 1320. The Archdiocese of Bombay has entrusted the parish of Ghansoli, hear Thane to us. We have to build a parish church here. We will also be setting up our provincial house near Thane. Our return to Thane heralds a new springtime for the Dominican Order in India. We need your prayers and help to make our dreams come true and our projects successful.

The next name history gives us is that of Jordan of Severac of Catelan. He was a member of a special group of Dominicans working in the Middle East. With four Francis­cans he journeyed over-land to the end of the Persian Gulf and then to India by sea. The party landed at Thana near Bombay where they were welcomed by a Nestorian family. While Jor­dan was absent on a preaching mission, the four Franciscans suffered martyrdom. Having buried them, Jordan then set up his own headquarters at Thana. That was about 1320.

He soon had to appeal for help to his brethren in Per­sia and eventually in Europe. They helped him to continue his work in Kanara, Mysore, Malabar and Travancore. Shortly afterwards he was nominated and ordained bishop of Quilon and a suffragan of the archdiocese of Sultania in Persia. By now he had been joined by many who had volunteered in an­swer to his plea.

He asked for more help but it was not forthcoming and the influence of Islam was increasing. After his death - he was stoned to death in the early 1330s - the Indian mission withered away.

Nearly two hundred years were to pass before the Dominicans formally returned. The first were few in number and came as chaplains to Portuguese military expeditions, to whose authority they were largely subject. But by the middle of the sixteenth century the Order as such had returned. They had the authority of Pope Paul III to set up houses which would eventually be part of the Portuguese province.

By 1568, the Dominican Pope St. Pius V granted permission for the erection of Dominican convents even in dioceses where the local bishop refused. But by now several dioceses had their own Dominican bishops. When the statutes of 1580 for India were promulgated they showed that Domini­can friars, either Portuguese or the descendants of Portuguese settlers, were working in places as far from Goa as Malacca, Indonesia, Mozambique and Africa, There were also large convents in India itself, especially in Goa and Cochin, with the convent of Goa ranking as a university. There were about 300 Friars we are told.

With the decline of the Portuguese influence in the seventeenth century, so too came the decline of the Indian Dominican congregation. In 1835 all religious communities both in Portugal and in its overseas territories were sup­pressed and the few remaining friars, now only about 30, were scattered. The revival began only one hundred years later.

In 1959 a new springtime began for the Order in India as we know it today. Four friars fr. Mannes Cussen, fr. Hugh Marquess, fr. Ephrem McCarthy and fr Thomas ryan of the Irish province arrived in Nagpur to take charge of the diocesan seminary at the invitation of late Archbishop Eugene D'Souza (later of Bhopal). In 1967 a house of formation was completed in Nagpur and a novitiate was opened in a small house in Pachmarhi about 160 miles away.

Since then there has been gradual progress. In 1971 a house built in Mangalore by the Master of the Order with help from the province of Rome was added to the Indian vi­cariate. A house in New Delhi followed in 1978 and the brethren in Nagpur became two distinct communities in 1987.

That was the year in which the vicariate in India was declared an autonomous vice-province with three formal convents and two smaller houses. More recently the novitiate has been transferred to a new house in Goa and so the Order has at last returned to the area of its first sixteenth centaury foundation in India. We have also a house in Igatpuri.

The Vice-Province was raised to the status of a province of the Order of Preachers on August 8, 1997. Today we have twelve communities and hundred and thirty religious, sixty seven of whom are priests. We have much to thank God for.