St. Theresa of Child Jesus Church – Kurnavally (2017)

In the year 1960, the village was formed by the high caste people, namely Reddy’s community, and a majority of the people were Reddy’s. Later on, a group of people came in search of work and settled in this village. These people were mostly low-caste people belonging to SC and ST communities. These people migrated from other nearby villages and began to live in this village; they started to form a small Gudem now it is called a SC. Gudem.

While these people began to live in this village, there came a catechist from Venkatapuram, under the guidance of the priest who was at Bhayaram and began to preach the word of God to these people to make them convert and believe in the Gospel. The catechists were coming to this village during the weekdays and the priest was coming to celebrate the Holy Mass on Sundays. Meanwhile, this village was shifted under the care of Kalluru parish according to the needs of the time. And the priests were coming from Kalluru to celebrate Holy Mass. And later on, this village was shifted under the pastoral care of Pedha Korikondi parish. At that time the priest was Rev. Fr. Kuriakose, under his guidance, the catechists were coming to conduct the prayers and the holy mass was celebrated two times a month. Eventually, people began to come to the prayer and the Holy Mass and the faith of the people was growing up, at that time there was no church in this village, the prayer, and the holy mass was celebrated in one open place. After some years under the guidance of the Priests village people made a small hurt as a prayer hall and began to pray in this small hut. Some of the time people even walked to the Pedha Korikondi to participate in the holy mass. At this moment Fr. Kuriakose was even distributing the oil and wheat powder to attract the people to come to the church. By looking at all these activities in the church, people began to flow to the church and the church was full for the mass. Later on, looking at an increase in the number of people the parish priest with the cooperation of the people constructed a small church where 100 people can be accommodated. And the parish was growing up in the faith and people were coming to the church regularly. And it continued almost for 40 years. And recently at the time of Fr. Arul Samy who was the then Provincial Superior had taken an interest to construct the school.  The school was constructed under the care of Fr. Anil Kommareddy. The school was running well, and sometimes our priests were helping the parish priest of Kurnavally with the masses. After Fr. Anil Kommareddy, Fr. Jojappa was sent to take care of the school. In his time, it happened that the Bishop of Khammam Bishop Maipan Paul had the interest to give this parish under the care of our congregation.

In the year 2017, on 13th June this village is made as parish, with three substations namely Punyapuram, Keshavapuram and Kalakodimi. The population of the Kurnavally parish is 150 families with 500 people, Punyapuram15 families with 30 people, Keshevapuram 6 families with 10 people and Kalakodimi1 family with 2 people. At present we are building a new church at Kurnavally as the existing church is too small and old. 

The territory of this village is almost 3 kilometers; there are 4 Anganwadi schools, 4 higher section schools, one small clinic, 3 protestant churches and one Catholic Church.