Chronology of Catholic Dioceses:Notes on the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Gandhinagar, 2002

On 11 November 2002, the Vatican Information Service announced that the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, had created the new ecclesiastical circumscription of Gandhinagar (area 30,588, population 7,270,466, Catholics 14,000, priests 41, religious 76), India, with territory taken from the diocese of Ahmedabad, elevating it at the same time to the rank of metropolitan archdiocese.

The new ecclesiastical province, divided from the ecclesiastical province of Bombay, will include the suffragan dioceses of Ahmedabad, Baroda and Rajkot of the Syro-Malabars. The Holy Father transferred Bishop Stanislaus Fernandes, S.J. of the diocese of Ahmedabad, to the new metropolitan see of Gandhinagar.

Source: Vatican Information Service, 11 November 2002

- CNy, with information from David Cheney