Mother Eliswa Vakayil
Indian catholic saint
Feast: 18 July (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
The Vatican record
- 8 November 2023 — Heroic virtue declared — title Venerable (decree list, 2023)
- 14 April 2025 — Miracle through their intercession approved (decree list, 2025)
Who they were
Eliswa Vakayil was born in Kerala, India, on 15 October 1831. Widowed young, she founded the first indigenous congregation of religious sisters in Kerala, the Third Order of Discalced Carmelites, now the Congregation of Teresian Carmelites.
She opened Kerala's first convent school, boarding house and orphanage for girls. She died on 18 July 1913.
The miracles
an unborn baby girl — Ernakulam, Kerala, India — 2005
At 34 weeks of pregnancy a baby girl was diagnosed with a cleft lip. She was healed in the womb through Mother Eliswa's intercession.
She was beatified at the Vallarpadam basilica in Kerala. One more approved miracle is needed for canonisation.
Why that counted as sanctity
On 2023 the Church declared that this life showed the Christian virtues to a heroic degree, and gave the title Venerable. The case of an unborn baby girl was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle on 14 April 2025, opening the way to beatification. Beatification followed on 9 November 2025 by Cardinal Sebastian Francis, for Pope Leo XIV.
The cause
The cause continues. No postulation address is published here yet. Favours received through this person’s intercession, and offers of help, are best sent to the religious order or congregation they belonged to, or to the diocese where the cause was opened; either will pass them to the postulation.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - decree of 14 Apr 2025
- Radio Veritas Asia - Mother Eliswa Vakayil declared Blessed
- UCA News - India's first indigenous nun beatified
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q16134733 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Eliswa Vakayil (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.