Kothanur is a suburban located on Hennur-Bagalur Road coming under the Civil Area Council of the CSI Karnataka Central Diocese. It has seen a strong Christian presence for several years with organizations like the Catholic Church and Korean pastors starting to establish their presence since early nineties.

The real history of the CSI Church would date back to 1993, when the Church of South India-Council for Child Care (KNH) provided a complete Residential Layout for their employees known as “Bornmann Enclave”. Rev. Dr. Chris Barrigar and Dr. P. Augustine both serving faculty members of South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies ( SAIACS), worshiping at CSI St. John’s Church of KCD, along with some of the families at Bornmann Enclave, saw a need for Church in Kothanur and so decided to take action about it, when it began in the houses of some families, the church then moved to Saturday evening full-fledged services at 6.00 p.m. led by Mr. Augustine C Kaunds of Kothanur village, which culminated with their first meeting on July 10th 1998 at Mr. Kaunds’s residence. Although the families were from different language groups, the services were conducted in English so that there would be no language barriers for all the children in their family. Most of them attended English medium schools. The initial liturgical support was provided by Rev. Dr. Chris Barrigar and Dr. P. Augustine along with Mrs. Fiona Crossling. Soon the Praise and Worship was included as a part of the service. 

We started off with only worship and preaching from Rev. Dr. Chris Barrigar, Dr. P Augustine, Mrs. Fiona Crossling and it has now grown to include the Praise & Worship aspect as well with those SAIACS theological students, Mr. Nigel Ajay Kumar, Ms. Gracia and Ms. Philomena, led the prayer and worship sessions at the conference and also helped us grow internally in our faith after the joyous celebration of Harvest, Christmas, New Year, Good Friday and Easter, it became evident that the congregation needed to organise into a church body. After many Saturday evening services between 1998-1999 decided to hold a morning service on August 1st 1999 at Mr. Augustine Kaund’s residence. 



























This initiative became known to our bishop, so he talked to Rev. Jacob Ravinder of CSI Divya Shanthi Church to help the congregation. A few months after his first visit, Bishop Vasanthakumar came back again on 24th October 1999 and the congregation was big. He granted approval for a new church to be established in Kothanur under Urban Church Extension (UCE) with Rev. Jacob Ravinder becoming the first Presbyter Incharge of Kothanur CSI Church.  Congregation got encouraged by Bishop to look out for a suitable land to build the church. Dated 7th Nov 1999, a building was rented to worship with the help of Rev. Dr. Chris Barrigar, the Cathedral helper who became Assistance Pastor. 

From this point forward, the church started to expand significantly. The audience received spiritual uplift from a number of guest preachers, including Dr. Chris Barrigar, Rev. Jacob Ravinder, and retired pastor of our diocese Rev. Flinders Stephen. The number of kids attending Sunday school increased, and many of them came from non-Christian households. The women’s fellowship was actively involved in raising money for the land purchase by routinely organising breakfast sales and taking an important role in the Thanksgiving feast. Under the guidance of SAIACS students, the youth also started to develop and soon they were consistently leading the Praise and Worship. Since they were actively involved in all of the church’s activities, the church designated every fifth Sunday of the year as “Youth Sunday,” during which a number of youth preachers shared their perspectives on the Bible. 

The church found a site for the construction of the church, and in 2002, CSI KCD acquired the site using money from the church. The church continued to expand, and on May 5, 2002, Rev. Vincent Rajkumar was elected as the second presbyter. The congregation increased and flourished in its understanding of the Lord over time. On June 8, 2003, Rev. Franklin S. Macwana took over pastoral duties from Rev. Vincent Rajkumar. On May 16, 2004, Rev. Prem Mitra succeeded Rev. Macwana. Under his direction, the church members began to minister to the residents of Kothanur by going out into the community. The construction’s foundation stone was placed in March 2005. The entire congregation participated in fund-raising, and donations flowed in from all directions as the church was completed and dedicated to God’s glory on January 26, 2006. The Executive Committee of the Diocese approved our congregation as a Pastorate on September 9, 2005, during the construction of the building. Rev. Prem Mitra was the first Chairman of the Pastorate Committee. On Sundays, the English service began at 9.00 a.m., while the Kannada service began at 7.30 a.m. We held an evening worship session for Hindi-speaking individuals who were working as labourers in the building sites in and around Kothanur since we had the opportunity of pastors like Rev. Harrison Chinnakumar helping from SAIACS.