Soundaraj Periyanayagam (6 June 1949 – 21 March 2020) was an Indian

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

bishop and

salesian The Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB), formally known as the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (), is a religious congregation of men in the Catholic Church, founded in 1859 by the Italian priest John Bosco to help poor and migrant youth during the ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

. Conference of Catholic Bishops of India website, ''Bishop Soundaraju of Vellore Passed Away''
/ref> Periyanayagam was born in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and was ordained to the priesthood in 1983. After gaining his BA in economics from Sacred Heart College, Thirupattur, he continued his studies in economics and theology and returned to Sacred Heart as a teacher; he went on to become the college's principal in 1994. He was announced as the sixth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vellore, on July 11, 2006. He served there until his death in 2020. Union of Catholic Asian News website, ''Diocese of Vellore''
/ref> He died due to cardiac arrest on 21 March 2020.

Notes

1949 births 2020 deaths 21st-century Roman Catholic bishops in India {{India-RC-bishop-stub