Founder of Believers Eastern Church and evangelist Mor Athanasius Yohan I, also known as KP Yohannan, passed away on Wednesday, May 8 after suffering a cardiac arrest. He was in Dallas, Texas in the United States of America, where he met with an accident. He was 74.
According to the official spokesperson of the church, he passed away from a sudden cardiac arrest at a hospital in Dallas, where he was receiving treatment following his accident.
“Dear Faithful of the Church, With profound grief and sorrow, we would like to inform that His Holiness Athanasius Yohan I, our honourable Metropolitan reposed in the Lord this evening, the 8th of May 2024. He passed away due to sudden cardiac arrest in a hospital in Dallas, Texas where he had been receiving treatment since his accident. Further details will be announced soon by the Holy Synod. May his memory be eternal!,” the facebook post shared by the Believers Eastern Church read.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?id=100079573119596&story_fbid=426797513316016
Church spokesperson Father Sijo Pandapallil also confirmed the news.
Reportedly, on Tuesday, May 7, at around 5.25 pm IST, Yohannan was out for a morning walk. Though he usually walks in the mornings on the Believers Church campus in Dallas, he was on a county road which had no walkway at the time of the accident. Police arrived on the scene shortly after the accident and he was taken to the hospital. Yohannan had undergone a lung surgery and spent the next 24 hours on medical observation.
Believers Eastern Church was established in 1993 by Yohannan, who was a former Marthoma Syrian priest. The church claims that it has a vast membership of over 30 lakh members across 12,000 parishes worldwide. Recently, it became the first church to publicly extend support to a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate in Kerala, after the church and Yohannan’s offices were raided by the Income-Tax Department in recent years.