Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception

Saint Alphonsa Muttathupadathu FCC
Painting of Saint Alphonsa
Born	(1910-08-19)19 August 1910
Died	28 July 1946(1946-07-28) (aged 35)
Venerated in	Catholic Church
Beatified	8 February 1986
Canonized	12 October 2008, Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI
Major shrine	St. Mary's Syro-Malabar Church, Bharananganam, Kerala, India
Feast	28 July

Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, FCC, born as Anna Muttathupadathu); 19 August 1910 – 28 July 1946), was a religious sister in the Franciscan Clarist Congregation. She was also known for being a victim soul, visionary and prophetess^{[citation needed]} in the Kottayam pergunna of the erstwhile Travancore province of British India, in the present-day Kerala, India.

She is the first woman of Indian origin to be canonised as a saint after decades of enquiry by the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints,^[1] she is also the first saint of the Syro-Malabar Church, an Eastern Catholic community of Eastern Christianity.

In the 1990s, a postal stamp commemorating Alphonsa was published by Kerala state's former minister, K Karunakaran.^[2] She is the first woman keralite to appear in the Indian Stamp.