Masihgarh evokes old world charm

Masihgarh, the lone Christian-majority locality of the City, has an interesting history.

Even those who have been residing in Delhi for a long time know little about Masihgarh – the tiny Vatican City of Delhi. A quaint locality nestled in the far South-east area of Sukhdev Vihar, near Okhla, Masihgarh (meaning the Messiah’s place), houses about 200 Christian families. There is also a beautiful church here named ‘Church of Our Lady of Health’ dedicated to Mother Mary. 

The origin and gradual development of Masihgarh, and the Shrine of Our Lady of Health, into its present form has to be traced back to the early 19th century.
Tradition associates the village of Masihgarh with Juliana, one of the captives brought to Delhi after the massacre of the Dutch settlement in Hoogli.

She earned fame for her skill in medicine. She is said to have cured the daughter of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who was ill. Aurangzeb gave Juliana this estate as dowry on her marriage to the adventurer Phillipe de Bourbon. Upon this young man, the Emperor also conferred the title ‘Dar-i-Yama,’ which became the family surname, though it got corrupted later to ‘Dermao’.

A few years after the Mutiny of 1857, Dominga Dermao, the last successor of this family, not having any children and through the influence of Father William Keegan, left this property to the Catholic Mission.

In 1918, Father James of Marcello from Italy persuaded the poor people who were uprooted and sent away from the Raisina forests, to settle here. As per the records available in the Okhla Parish, these first-ever settled people in Okhla (eight joint families together) embraced Christianity and hence, the village was named ‘Masihgarh,’ meaning the Messiah’s place, by Father James himself.

In 1921, he built a small rectangular church from the funds he obtained from the Archdiocese of Agra and named it St Joseph’s Church, Masihgarh. Later in 1927, Father Louis Turkeski, the Vicar-General of Agra, built a small school and a residence for the visiting priests from Agra. Gradually, people from nearby places like Lado Sarai, Khanpur, Masoodpur, Kotla etc. settled here and also adopted Christianity.

In 1964, Father Theodore Menezes took over as the Parish Priest in Masihgarh, and on directions from the late Archbishop Angelo Fernandes, St Joseph’s Church was demolished and a large new church was built in its place. It was converted into, and named as, Shrine of Our Lady of Health, referring to Mother Mary herself.

The inspiration behind this conversion was none other than the famous shrine of ‘Vailankanni Matha’ in Tamil Nadu. Surrounded by three major hospitals – Holy Family, Escorts and Indraprastha Apollo – where the sick are attended to 24X7, the Marian shrine at Masihgarh became a great source of healing, peace and consolation for
patients and their families. Even today, people from all walks of life come here to seek the blessings of health from ‘Our Lady of Health.’