Mar Sebastian Mankuzhikary, (March 9, 1929 – 11 June 1994), first bishop of the Diocese of Thamarassery (Syro-Malabar Church) in Kerala, India. Born in Thanneermukkom, Kerala, he was educated at seminaries in India and ordained a priest on March 12, 1955. He subsequently studied philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome where he completed his doctoral dissertation in 1959, Metaphysical Vision of Tagore (published posthumously in 2000, ed. Joseph Therattil), a study on the writer, philosopher and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. After post-doctoral work at the Catholic University of Louvain and teaching at the St. Joseph's Pontifical Seminary in Kerala, he was ordained auxiliary bishop of Ernakulam and titular bishop of Arethusa dei Siriin on 15 November 1969 and became t