Father Silvaster Sarihaddula, 60

Father Silvaster Sarihaddula, the beloved pastor at St. Joseph the Worker parish who once worked with Mother Teresa of Kolkata, died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 60 on Sunday, Dec. 27.

His death came as a shock to his combined parish in West Winfield and Richfield Springs and the Diocese of Albany.

“Father Sil was a priest through and through. He loved his people, loved making them welcome, always finding ways to attract them to the sacramental life and to devotional prayer. He had a shrine to Mother Teresa, who was influential in his early priesthood and in his coming to serve in the United States,” said Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, who first met Father Sarihaddula when he was then-monsignor at St. Matthias Church in Ridgewood, Queens. “He loved having fun and enjoyed working with our Latino community and attending their celebrations.” 

Father Sarihaddula’s ties to Mother Teresa go back to the 1980s when he was a brother with the Missionaries of Charity, the religious congregation she founded in 1950. In 1989, Mother Teresa sent Father Sarihaddula from his native India to Tijuana, Mexico, to study for the priesthood. He told The Evangelist in 2016 that his only answer to Mother Teresa was, “Yes.”

"She didn't ask me if I wanted to go to Mexico or not," said Father Sarihaddula at the time. 

The move to Mexico was challenging — he didn’t speak Spanish and was unfamiliar with the culture — but it was there that he developed a devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who inspired him the rest of his life, as well as his ministry to Spanish-speaking Catholics.

"(Our Lady of Guadalupe) is the woman who is really standing next to me and leading me," Father Sarihaddula told The Evangelist. 

In 2008, Father Sarihaddula was reassigned by the Missionaries of Charity to the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, where he worked mainly with Hispanic Catholics. Father Sarihaddula served at Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Queens for a year and a half and then St. Matthias in Ridgewood for more than eight years, during which time he got to know Bishop Scharfenberger. 

In July 2015, Father Sarihaddula  was assigned to the Diocese of Albany. He lived at St. Augustine's parish in Troy and celebrated Masses at St. Anthony's parish in Troy, Our Lady of Americas Shrine Church in Albany, St. Cecilia's parish in Warrensburg, St. Edward the Confessor in Clifton Park and Sacred Heart in Margaretville before being named  priest-administrator for St. Joseph the Worker parish. 

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Jan. 7 at St. Joseph the Worker Parish in West Winfield at 11:00 a.m.