ABSTRACT
Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah made his greatest impact at the local level as a church builder in Andhra and at the international level in preparing the ground for the unprecedented ecumenical achievement of church unification in South India. Azariah’s life was filled with ironies: he promoted an indigenous Indian missionary society partly to please a foreign friend, the American Sherwood Eddy. Azariah was influenced by, and felt broad sympathy for, the growing aspirations of his countrymen for freedom and self-determination. He constructed his Indian cathedral in Dornakal utilizing architectural elements from indigenous temples and mosques to symbolize his desire to identify Indian Christianity with Indian society more generally. Azariah’s personal and theological consistency enabled him to cope with all the competing pressures with amazing serenity. Azariah’s execution of his duties in each office influenced, in turn, the nature of those international systems, making them less western and more Asian in character.
