Cardinal Cleemis elected new CBCI President

Cardinal Cleemis new Chief of CBCI

Kottayam, February 12: Cardinal Mar Baselios Cleemis, the major archbishop of Syro Malankara Catholic Church, was on Tuesday elected as the 13th president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI).

Mar Cleemis replaces cardinal Oswald Gracias, the major archbishop of the Mumbai diocese, as the head of CBCI, the council of bishops from all three Catholic rites in India -- Latin, Syro Malabar and Syro Malankara. Cleemis (55), one of the youngest cardinals of the Church, was selected for the key post by the eight-day CBCI's biennial plenary, which began in Pala near here on February 5.

Mar Cleemis was elevated to the College of Cardinals of the Universal Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. He is the first cardinal of the Syro-Malankara Church.

He is also a member of the congregation for the oriental churches and of the pontifical council for inter-religious dialogue.

Cleemis was born on June 15, 1959 as Isaac Thottumkal at a village in Pathanamthitta district as the son of Mathew and Annamma Thottumkal.

He attended the Minor Seminary at Tiruvalla and received a BPhil degree from St Joseph's Pontifical at Aluva. He later studied at the Papal Seminary and was ordained a priest on June 11, 1986.

He took Masters in Theology from Dharmaram College, Bangalore and obtained doctorate from Ecumenical Theology from Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), Rome in 1997.

The Vatican appointed Cleemis as bishop of the eparchy of Tiruvalla in 2003 and he was elevated as metropolitan archbishop in 2006. Cleemis rose to become the second catholicos of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church through the Episcopal Synod of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in 2007.

Cleemis participated as a cardinal-elector in the conclave that elected Pope Francis.