വിശുദ്ധ ദേവസഹായം പിള്ള
The first Indian layman to be canonised
He was born Neelakandan Pillai in 1712 at Nattalam, in the part of the Travancore kingdom that is now Kanyakumari district. He served in the court of Marthanda Varma as a palace official, a position of standing.
Through Eustachius De Lannoy, a Dutch naval commander captured by Travancore and afterwards given charge of its army, he came to Christianity and was baptised around 1745, taking the name Lazarus, which in Malayalam and Tamil became Devasahayam, meaning God is my help.
What made his conversion dangerous was not belief alone but conduct. He rejected caste distinction openly, mixing with and eating alongside people of lower caste, and said plainly that all stood equal before God. In the court of the time this was read as sedition against the social order as much as apostasy.
He was stripped of office, arrested, and for around three years moved from place to place on a buffalo, beaten and exhibited publicly. He did not recant. On 14 January 1752 he was taken to Aralvaimozhy and shot.
His remains were buried at St Francis Xavier’s Church in Kottar, Nagercoil, where his tomb is venerated. He was beatified in 2012 and canonised by Pope Francis on 15 May 2022, the first Indian layman to be raised to the altars.
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