A Catholic parish in Kerala has sent its “miracle” Host to Rome for further studies as part of a process to declare it as a Eucharistic miracle. A face resembling that of Jesus had appeared on the host during Mass on November 15, 2013, at the Christ the King Church, Vilakkannur, a parish under the Syro-Malabar Archdiocese of Tellicherry.

Baby Joseph Payikatt, a former trustee of the parish, said the host was taken to the Syro-Malabar Church’s headquarters at Kakkanad, a suburb of Kochi, on January 10 and handed it over to Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro the next day.

The nuncio had come to St Thomas Mount in Kakkanad to attend the Syro-Malabar Church’s January 7-15 Synod.

The host has been venerated as a miracle at the Vilakkannur parish since September 21, 2018, when the archdiocese returned it after five years. Earlier, it was kept at the arch-bishop’s residence. Fr Vengakunnel with the relic “A four-member team led by our parish priest Father Mathew Vengakunnel carried the host to Kochi,” Payikatt told Matters India on January 13.