04868 252240 / 257000

sjconkattappana@gmail.com

Founder

Tab 1

Founder

John of God (1495 -1550) is the founder of the Brothers Hospitaller Order. He was a portugese soldier turned health care worker in Spain. He took care of the suffering patients as a true follower of Jesus Christ. So people called him ‘John of God’. He is the patron Saint of Hospitals, nurses, heart patients and the sick.

Brother FortunatusThanhäuser, O.H., (1918-2005)

The "Father of the poor"

One of the followers of St. John of God from Germany, Br. Fortunatus Thanhauser OH came to India in 1968. Brother Fortunatus had long dreamed of spreading the Order in the countries in need of missionaries, especially in India, for he was convinced that this was God's will. He was still vice-provincial of the German province in Frankfurt when he was called to Kattappana by the Archbishop of Changanasserry, Msgr. Mathew Kavukattu. The mission entrusted to him was to provide for the health needs of the most remote populations in the Kerala High range. There he opened a clinic and a community, beginning to build St. John’s hospital which is now the largest and most important hospital in the region, able to serve a population of about a million people. Brother Fortunatus also opened a school for nurses, an orphanage, a home for the elderly, a psychiatric hospital and many other social services to better help the people, who quickly venerated him as the "Father of the Poor."

Reach & Locate Us