The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) acknowledges with deep respects the life and ministry of the Bishop Dr. Ezra Sargunam, the Father Bishop of the Evangelical Church in India (ECI) – the pioneer missionary and founder of the ECI.
The NCCI Community, and it’s leadership, expresses it’s deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences to the members of the family and to the members of the churches of the ECI spread throughout the length and breadth of this country and beyond it’s borders. May the spirit and legacy of the rich heritage of the ECI be sustained in you and your ministries of christian faith, and in the spiritual memory of your Father Bishop.
Bishop Dr. Ezra Sargunam is a committed Christian, who fashioned himself after the manner of our Master – Jesus the Christ. His commitment to preaching the gospel and making disciples “from every language and every tribe” is known to one and all. His commitment to the upliftment of the masses is noteworthy; his commitment to social justice and his call to political witness individually and severally was always seen to be born out of his deep rooted commitment to the Gospel. We thank God for his tenure as the Chair of the TN State Minority Commission. I must record with deep appreciation his role, along with several others, in the repealing of the TN Prohibition of forcible conversion Act – the only such Act to be repealed in the whole country. But for his influence in the Government of the time and the leadership of the Churches in Tamilnadu of that time represented by Bishop Dr. V. Devasahayam and Archbishop Peter Fernando we could not have done it.
Bishop Dr. Ezra Sargunam’s life is a witness to the faith of the measure of the mustard seed, and to power of responding to the call of God in deep obedience. It grows as a tree in which the birds of the air could nest, and the weary could rest in its abiding shade. He was an evangelist at heart, an enabler in attitude and an empowering agent – the ECI is a standing witness to who he was and what he believed; it can be said of him that he built the church of God and not a kingdom of his own.
Bishop Dr. Ezra Sargunam was a master planner. What ever he did, he did in scale. His ability for mass mobilisation is a gift from God and an expression of his faith. We note with humility that he pointed them all to God and not to himself.
His abilities to network with people in-country and across borders has been the hallmark of his sharing. He was a Christian who was a friend to peoples of all faiths and ideologies respecting their religious faith and ideological persuasions.
The NCCI Community, of which the ECI is one of the latest members, extends its solidarity and prayers to the members of the family, the leadership of the Church, and to every believer in the Church. May the God who built you up continue to journey with you, may the centrality of the Christian faith in which you are being built up sustain you, and may the in-dwelling spirit of God that unites us continue to propel you and us in the faith and witness of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, as you are surrounded by witness of all those who have gone ahead of us – even your Father Bishop, Bishop Dr. Ezra Sargunam. Blessed be his memory, and sacred to the witness of Jesus the Christ.
All Glory and Honour be to our God for ever and ever, Amen.
Rev. Asir Ebenezer
General Secretary, NCC India
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