Along with the whole world, hundreds of Christians in northeast India’s Tripura state gathered at Nandannagar Don Bosco church to celebrate the annual Christmas Mass.
They prayed to the Lord for world peace along with their State and hoped that festivals like Christmas can restore peace and harmony in the region.
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The priest of the church viewed that Jesus came to this world to bring peace to the world.
Special prayers and musical programmed was conducted during the annual Christmas Mass here.
The first Christian settlement, in once kingly state of Tripura, was the Protégés who had a small colony at Moriamnagar on the outskirts of Agartala and had come as warriors and bodyguards from the Chittagong area for Manikya dynasty kings who ruled the State for more than 500 years.
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The mass prayed to the Lord with the theme ‘Jesus Christ savior of the world’, and for bringing down in the suffering of people and change in the depths of hearts of people the cause of all evil and bring peace.
The Bishop praising the Lord and thousands heard him speak inside the cathedral and people including a good number of youths turned out for the day. Many away from their house also participated in the celebration.
Meantime, in villages like Kuki Basti, to celebrate the birth of Jesus, young and old got together in community feasting where they had food together as women sang carol in their traditional language and music.
Agartala diocese covers the whole state. Agartala, where the diocese is based, is Tripura’s capital, 2,585 kilometers east of New Delhi. Earlier the state was under the Brahmanbaria diocese and a priest from there used to visit the State with the permission of the Manikya Maharajas.
Nearly 80 per cent of the state’s 3.7 million people are Bengali-speaking Hindus. Most migrated from Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan), which surrounds three sides of Tripura. The state is linked to the rest of India through Mizoram state to the east.
Christianity entered the hilly kingly state Tripura which later merged with India in October 1949 and the first church of the state is the Shanti Rani church at Moriamnagar.