History OFS in India

It was during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), who was an OFS member himself that the OFS was officially implanted in India. It was his desire to spread OFS everywhere. The pope wrote to the provincial minister of the capuchins of Lombardy in northern Italy, that he wished the Third Order to spread farther and farther, day by day. Let us propagate and propagate the Third Order. Let us take great pains to do so. It was in this response that the Italian capuchins, who worked as missionaries in North India during the later part of the nineteenth century, under took the task of implanting the Third Order in several of their mission territories. With the departure of the Italian capuchins, the Third Order fraternities, established by them, showed signs of decline and gradually became extinct in North India but proved to be more successful in South India. The beginning of the OFS in India took place at different times and in different states.

In Goa in the year 1770 :
In Kerala in the year 1868 :
In North India in the year 1886 :
In Karnataka in the year 1927 :
In Tamil Nadu in the year 1933;
In Maharashtra in the year 1964.
In India today totally there are 87 Regions with 725 established local Fraternities and over 18000 and more members.