Devadass Ambrose Mariadoss is an Indian Catholic bishop serving the Roman Catholic Diocese of Thanjavur. He was born on 6 October 1947 to Mariadoss and Ranjitham, a Catholic family from Ammapet in Thanjavur District of Tamil Nadu state. After finishing his basic education at Appavu Thevar High School at Ukkadai, he joined St. Mary's Minor Seminary to become a diocesan priest when the diocese was in a desperate need for the native priests and then he was sent to Sri Pushpam College, Poondi, along with F. Antonysamy, the present bishop of Kumbakonam to do a pre-university course for his secular UG degree. After finishing his secular studies, he was sent to St. Paul's Seminary, Trichy for his priestly formation and for his philosophical and theological studies. Eventually, he was ordained a priest on 5 August 1974 by Bishop Arokiasamy Sundaram, the first Bishop of Thanjavur.
Priesthood
After his ordination, he was appointed as an assistant parish priest of Nagapattinam. His dedicated service to the people especially during the times of severe cyclone is gratefully remembered even today. After spending 5 years at Nagapattinam, In 1979, he was sent to join the staff at St. Peter's Pontifical Seminary, Bangalore. Thus he became a professor in Sacred Scripture at St. Peter's Pontifical Institute. The Scripture department of the institute is the prestigious, having the world-renowned scholars and stalwarts such as Lucian Legrand. After a short period of probation, he was sent to Rome for his higher studies from 1980 to 1984, from where he received his licentiate in sacred scripture from the Biblical Institute, Rome, run by the Jesuits. Then he came back to the seminary and taught sacred scripture for the seminarians. Again, from 1991 to 1994, he went to Paris, France, for his doctoral studies in the Catholic University, Paris where he came out with the flying colours of doctoral degree. Seeing his intellectual caliber, the University awarded him the doctoral degree with "Summa Cum Laude", the maximum possible. He had also received earlier a diploma in Biblical studies at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, making use of his summer holidays while he was doing his licentiate in Rome. While he was in St. Peter's Seminary, he had also rendered his service by being 'Registrar' of the Institute and then he was nominated as the bishop of Thanjavur on 28 June 1997 while he was still a Vice-Rector of the prestigious St. Peter's Seminary.
Bishop of Thanjavur
On 24 September 1997, Devadass Ambrose was solemnly consecrated as the third Bishop of Thanjavur by Simon Card. Lourdusamy along with the co-consecrators, Archbishops Michael Augustine, the Archbishop of Pondicherry-Cuddalore and Packiam Arokiasamy, the then out-going bishop of Thanjavur. He has been serving as the Bishop of Thanjavur for more than 23 years.
Education
In 1997 Devadass Ambrose began to push for the creation of new schools and colleges, which would give quality education to poor children in an affordable fees structure. A first institution for girls, named "Our Lady of Good Health School of Nursing", was opened in 2005 at Thanjavur, followed soon by a second one for boys and girls. Now there are at least five higher education institutions with various disciplines. The collected fee is used for the maintenance of the institutions and their infrastructure; deserving students also receive scholarships for their studies.
The central government has made NEET compulsory for all the students who aspire to study MBBS. The syllabus for the NEET is taken from CBSE. Unfortunately the diocese does not have a single CBSE school and hence to start with, the Bishop wanted to establish one such school in Thanjavur at Bishop Sundaram Campus. There are two blocks, one for Primary and the other for the Secondary. The Primary Block is dedicated to His Grace, Packiam Arokiasamy, the Second Bishop of Thanjavur and the Secondary Block is dedicated to Rt. Rev. R. A. Sundaram, the first bishop of Thanjavur. Affordable fee structure, Quality of Education and the Proximity have attracted the students and the parents and in the first year itself the strength of the newly established CBSE school is 1097.
