Bunyan Joseph

A couple of days' prior to 27 September 1947,[22] the award-winning photographer Mark Kaufman of Life (magazine)[13] undertook a photo shoot of few personalities at Madras that included Joseph Bunyan. It was J. S. M. Hooper, then General Secretary of the Bible Society of India who preached the inaugural sermon at the cathedral.[22] It is said that the cathedral and its surroundings were packed with nearly 5,000[23] people that day. There were a total of 15[22] Bishops who were consecrated, among them 9[24] were first time Bishops,[4]

• Bunyan Joseph,[24] Bishop - in - Anantapur-Kurnool,
• Frank Whittaker,[24] Bishop - in - Medak,
• Hospet Sumitra,[24] Bishop - in - Cuddapah
• Premaka Gurushantha,[24] Bishop - in - Mysore,
• T. G. Stuart Smith,[24] Bishop - in - North Travancore, Cochin and Malabar,
• Arnold Legg,[24] Bishop - in - South Travancore,
• Edgar Bentley Thorp,[24] Bishop - in - Trichy-Tanjore
• James Edward Lesslie Newbigin,[24] Bishop - in - Madura and Ramnad,
• Sabapathy Kulendran,[24] Bishop - in - Jaffna,

The remaining 6 were already Bishops in their erstwhile dioceses until their integration into the union,

• Anthony Blacker Elliott,[24] Bishop - in - Dornakal,
• Yeddy Muthyalu,[24] Bishop - in - Krishna-Godavari, and
• Cherakarottu Korula Jacob,[24] Bishop - in - Cochin and Malabar,
• Arthur Michael Hollis,[24] Bishop - in - Madras,
• George Theodore Selwyn,[24] Bishop - in - Tirunelveli,
• Herbert Pakenham-Walsh[24] (Diocese unassigned[22]).[24]

The bishopric to which Bunyan Joseph was appointed was already mired[8] in a problem of dependency[25] and the entire Church union[26] did not go well[27] with the congregations who were ignorant about it[25] and refused[27] to join the union. The bishopric of Bunyan Joseph was short lived and he had to relinquish[25] the Cathedra on 2 August 1949[28] due to manifold reasons which is best known as the Nandyal Problem.[8] It was during his oversight of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction that brought him in interaction with B. E. Devaraj and Emani Sambayya.[25]

A couple of decades later, Constance M. Millington took up Nandyal Problem as her doctoral dissertation at the University of Leeds in 1990.[25] Much later, S. J. Sampath Kumar, a researcher at the Sri Krishnadevaraya University, took up research on the history of the Rayalaseema diocese in 2002 and had also covered the life and times of Bunyan Joseph.[1]

In retrospect, L. W. Brown, writing in The Churchman in 1951 about the initial three years' of the formation of the Church of South India, between the two biennial Church of South India Synods, highlighted the issues in Anantapur-Kurnool Diocese, with special reference to the bishopric of Joseph Bunyan.[8]

The CSI-St. George's Cathedral, Chennai. Bunyan Joseph was consecrated in this cathedral on 27 September 1947.

Finally in 1952,[25] after more than two years of confrontation with the Church of South India, Bishop Bunyan Joseph came in full communion with it. Constance M. Millington writes,[25]

Early in 1952, a delegation from S.P.G. visited India and went to Nandyal to study the situation there. Bishop Joseph decided to withdraw his opposition to the Commisary being Manager of the Schools and promised to withdraw his signature which was so vital to the Court case. The decision of Bishop Joseph gave cause for much rejoicing, far more for its spiritual than its legal implications. Once he had withdrawn from the court case, he was no longer defying the Moderator and Executive Committee of C.S.I. and they could be reconciled with him.[25]

After Bunyan Joseph returned to the fold of the CSI in 1952,[25] Arthur Michael Hollis, then Moderator, invited[25] him to be Assistant Bishop - in - Madras.[25] Bunyan Joseph chose to proceed to Secunderabad where Frank Whittaker, then Bishop - in - Medak accommodated him in Medak Diocese made him as Assistant Bishop.[29] Bunyan Joseph also served as Presbyter during the period 1956-1957[30] and 1960-1961[30] at the CSI-Church of St. John the Baptist in Secunderabad.[30] Rajaiah David Paul recorded that Bunyan Joseph retired in August 1959[31] after attaining superannuation. However, he also recorded that it was only in October 1963[31] that he finally retired from active service of the Church.

During the 1970s,[32] the Board of Theological Education of the Senate of Serampore College,[32] then in Bangalore under the stewardship of Hunter P. Mabry, H. S. Wilson, and Zaihmingthanga planned to prepare a comprehensive bibliography of original Christian writings in India in vernacular languages. Subsequently, Ravela Joseph[32] was appointed in the 1980s to take up the task of gathering material from as many sources as possible across the Telugu-speaking states. The search for such vernacular Christian writings and compositions from institutions of the Catholic, Protestant, the New and Indigenous Churches and individual authors and composers gathered steam and finally concluded in the 1990s by which time Suneel Bhanu also assisted in the initiative.[32] The Bibliography of Original Christian Writings in India in Telugu was published in 1993 and includes the following two writings by Bunyan Joseph,[32]

As a Hymn writer, Bunyan Joseph composed many hymns and 7 of them find place in the Christian Hymnal in Telugu with the corresponding hymn numbers.[14]