St. Thomas Church (Church of North India), Nehru Road, Lucknow Cantonment

I wanted to visit St. Thomas for a very long time for few reasons. It is the Church which was used to shoot few scenes in Shashi Kapoor’s 1978 Movie ‘Junoon’. The movie is around 1857 Sepoy rebellion, commonly known as the ‘First war of Indian Independence’.  Another reason is that few years back the Church had been taken over by a group that had broken away from Church of North India and recently attempts have been made to bring it back under the original leadership of CNI Diocese of Lucknow. Please pray for GOD’s guiding hand in this situation. And the third and main reason is that as a kid I have passed by this Church innumerable times while going or coming back from my school La Martiniere College but had never got a chance to go inside and see the church.

Again as usual I could not get access to the interiors. The current presbyter does not stay on the campus and since only he has the keys I could view the interiors. I am also trying to get few more details like year of construction, consecration, etc. I’ll update the post once I receive those details.

Here are some latest pictures of the St. Thomas Church and few stills from the 1978 Movie ‘Junoon’.

Church as it appears from the main road (Nehru Road)

Main Entrance gate to the Church - from the look it appears to have fallen into disuse - 

Another Gate on the right (not in the picture) is used to enter the church compound

Board at the entrance gate with the name of the current presbyter Rev. Lalit Singh - 1

Board at the entrance gate with the name of the current presbyter Rev. Lalit Singh - 2

The old board with 'Fellowship of Believers' which was the name of the ministry/denomination of the broke away group still hangs over the main entrance gate

A still from the 1978 movie 'Junoon' - notice the church steeple is 4 storeys

Currently the steeple is only 3 storeys high - clearly the top storey got damaged and was not built back

View of the Church from the side and a clearer view of the steeple

Another view of the Church

View of the front door and the porch - the iron grill is an addition in the last few years and did not exist when the movie was shot in 1978

A still from the 1978 movie 'Junoon' - the front door and the porch as it appeared then

View from the front

The front door entrance to the Church - 1

The front door entrance to the Church - 2

View from other side

St. Thomas' Parsonage as it appears from the Church with the lush greens of the Church compound

The Parsonage appears to be in a comparatively good condition - I was told during this visit that the current Presbyter does not reside here

 The Church compound also has few cottages at the back

A still from the 1978 movie 'Junoon' - view of the whole church

A still from the 1978 movie 'Junoon' - As it appeared from inside in the movie