Catholic Intelligence

Archdiocese of Ujjain

Uiiainen(sis)

Syro-Malabar metropolitan archeparchy in Madhya Pradesh, India, created as an apostolic exarchate on 29 July 1968 from the Diocese of Indore, made an eparchy on 26 February 1977, and elevated to a metropolitan archeparchy on 28 August 2025. Seated at St Mary's Cathedral in Ujjain, it heads a central India province with suffragans Sagar, Satna and Jagdalpur.

The see

Rank
Metropolitan see
Tradition
Syro-Malabar Church
Erected
29 July 1968
Latin
Uiiainen(sis)
Patron
St Paul
Annuario code
001000041

The see in figures

Catholics
3,398
Population
4,396,000
Catholic share
0.1%

of the people living within its bounds

Priests
96
Catholics per priest
35
Extent
18,225 km²
Catholics per km²
0.2

Figures as recorded in the register, from the Annuario Pontificio and the see's own published statements. Shares and ratios are computed from the two figures shown beside them.

The bishop

Archbishop
Mar Sebastian Vadakel
Born
7 October 1952
Birthplace
Vilakumadam

A see whose chair stands empty is recorded as vacant rather than filled with a guess. On what a bishop is, see the bishop.

The cathedral

St Mary's Cathedral, Ujjain stands in Ujjain, the church that holds the cathedra from which this see takes its name.

On what a cathedral is, see the cathedral; every see church on earth is gathered at the cathedrals.

The province of Ujjain

This see is the metropolitan of its province.

The sees of this province:

On how the Church is ordered into provinces, see the diocese.

History

Ujjain is an ecclesiastical district of the Syro-Malabar Church, an Eastern Catholic Church of the East Syriac Rite in India, with its cathedral episcopal see at St. Mary's Cathedral in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, in Central India. In August 2025 Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil raised it to an archeparchy and named Mar Sebastian Vadakel, the bishop of Ujjain, its first Metropolitan Archbishop. The archeparchy now heads the church's ecclesiastical province serving most of Central India.

What is kept by invitation

The record above is published because it is public: what this see is, when it was erected, who holds its chair, and where it stands among its neighbours.

The working record is not. The chancery's address, telephone and email, the clergy of the see, and the hours of Mass, confession and adoration in the parishes within it are kept for members, and a person reads every request.

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Sources

The see's own website · Wikipedia

This record is compiled from the published statements of the see and the references of the Holy See, among them the Annuario Pontificio. On the method, see the keeping of the record. Whoever finds an error is asked, in charity, to write: [email protected].