The commemorative postage stamp of Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara was released by the then President of India Mr. R. Venkataraman on Sunday, the 20th December 1987, at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The stamp has been designed by India Security Press, Nashik Road.

President R. Venkitaraman spoke at Stamp Release Function:- ” …. It is well over a hundred years since Father Chavara left us. And yet he is a living inspiration for thousands and thousands of persons. He is gratefully remembered as a profound scholar, an educationist, a builder of institutions for the underprivileged, the illiterate, the destitute and the needy.

Few people have been able to combine the contemplation of God with the service of man as naturally and creatively as Father Chavara did. There was in fact no dichotomy in his mind between the world of faith and the world of action. Father Chavara represented both. A mystic, he could also be an engine of activity. Capable of withdrawing in to his innermost being, Father Chavara was at the same time a motive force for the establishment of a social order in which everyone could live in dignity and faith. It is only appropriate that His Holiness the Pope declared Fr. Chavara `Blessed’ during the Papal visit to India in 1986…..”

Stamp

Governor P. Ramachandran spoke on the occasion of the Stamp Release:- “…..Fr. Chavara is the pride not only of Kerala, but of entire mankind. It is rare indeed where so many sterling virtues have blended so perfectly in one individual. Fr. Chavara was born a mortal, but the good he did over a span of six and a half decades cast him in the mould of immortal of humanity. Yesterday, today and forever to the last syllable of recorded time this God-realized soul will remain among mankind’s most cherished possessions….”