The All Saint’s Church Congregation Hosur Road Bangalore*
*Press Release*

All Saints Church is a living religious and cultural heritage of Bengaluru. This year the congregation is preparing to celebrate the Church’s 150th anniversary. When the entire city is turning into a concrete jungle, the All Saints Church has compassionately tended to more than fifty trees that form the Church’s Sacred Grove and created a beautiful space for solitude and solace in the midst of chaos and busyness of traffic at Vellara Junction and is referred as ‘The Garden Church of Bangalore’
The Sacred Grove also is the nesting place for more than twenty-five bird species including the rare Paradise Flycatcher.
According to the original DPR of Metro Phase-2-2011 Gottigere-Nagavara, the track was to run underneath the Hosur Road and the station was to come up at the opposite side of the Church. The BMRCL revised the DPR in 2017 to the present alignment and acquired 3618 square meters of Church land as permanent acquisition. The BMRCL says its requires a further 1140 square meters of Church land as ‘Temporary Acquisition’ (BMRCL press release dated 18th march 2020). The required area is vacant land having only 26 trees and there will be no damage done to the Church building.
The congregation state that the area required by the BMRCL has more than 50 healthy trees and 25 birds s species including the rare Paradise Fly Catcher. The quaint Church is the only one of its kind built in the year 1870 in the Indo-Saracenic style by the renowned architect Robert Chisholm. The foundation of the Church is made up of limestone and mortar and it will be endangered by the heavy vibration of the 90-foot excavation, 17meters away from the Church. Apart from this the Church can accommodate only 200 members at a given time and the spillover are being accommodated in front of the Church extending to the area which is required by the BMRCL as temporary acquisition.
The Church congregation to voice their grievances has undertaken an Unbroken Silent Protest in the Church campus until the 300th day, subsequently because of the lockdown imposed by the Government due to the Pandemic and respecting the protocol of the government not to congregate in places of worship, we the congregation have been continuing with the protest from our homes and we have reached the 500th day of Silent Protest.
We will continue with our struggle to safeguard our trees and to secure our Right to Worship in peace and tranquility, we request the BMRCL to drop its plans to encroach our church and to search for other viable alternatives for e.g. going south in the vacant RMS (Rashtriya Military School Campus).