Inception and Development
Oleru is one of the oldest Christian communities in Andhra Pradesh. The Catholic community at Oleru came to existence in 1743. At that time, Fr. Menente, a French Jesuit Priest had his headquarters at Oleru and from here he visited the villages of Kondaveedu, Palnad and Tumbabu. In 1784, another French Jesuit priest, Fr. Astre built the church and it became a parish. Unfortunately in the year 1787, on account of a severe famine, upper caste Catholics migrated to Tamil Nadu while the lower caste Catholics stayed back. Till 1994 there were no resident priests in the centre because of the many inconveniences of the place.
For the better services to the spiritual needs of this Catholic community, the Bishop of Guntur, Rt. Rev. Gali Bali decided to hand over the Centre to Claretian Missionaries. Fr. Mathew Elamthanam looked after the pastoral care of the Centre while residing at Bhattiprolu for one year and from 1994 began staying at Oleru itself. |
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Pastoral Ministry
On 29 June 1994, on the Feast day of Apostles Peter and Paul, Oleru was bifurcated from the Repalle parish and was re-erected as a Parish. The new parish was dedicated to St Francis Xavier. The parish consists of six substations: two communities of Oleru, Chatragadda, Nalluru, Shantinagar and Penamudi. The Parish has a total strength of about 650 Catholics from 176 Catholic families. The missionaries are taking care of many developmental projects and more than 350 families are directly benefitting from various projects.
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