Father Sylvanus Sngi Lyngdoh, Professor of Scripture at Sacred Heart Theological College, Shillong, was conferred honorary doctorate by the Salesian Pontifical University (UPS), Rome, for his Biblical, literary, socio-cultural and religious contribution. The degree was conferred on Fr. Sngi at Sacred Heart Theological College, Shillong, August 8, by Fr. Manlio Sodi, former Dean of the Faculty of Theology, on behalf of the Grand Chancellor of the Salesian Pontifical University, Rome, Fr. Pascual V. Chavez. Fr. Jaroslaw Rochowiak, the Secretary General and Registrar of the UPS, conferred a medallion on Fr. Sngi. In a message Fr. Chavez called Fr. Sngi ‘an outstanding phenomenon’ who truly deserved the honorary doctorate. He recalled Fr. Sngi’s extraordinary intellectual talents, coupled with tenacity for work and passion for the missions. He was not only a scholar and a professor, but also a pastor and shepherd, a Salesian who was able to harmonise scientific competence and proclamation of the Word. He praised Fr. Sngi’s multi-lingual skills, and his monumental contribution to the Khasi literature. 84-year old Fr. Sngi was born in 1921 at Nongbah Thaiang, in the Ri Bhoi District of Meghalaya. He was baptized at the age of nine by Fr. Constantine Vendrame, known as the Apostle of the Khasis. Fr. Sngi joined the Salesian Congregation in 1948. After his graduation from Calcutta University with honours and a first class first in Latin, he pursued his theological and Biblical studies in Italy, Israel and Greece. Besides obtaining a Masters’ degrees in Theology, and an M.Phil. degree in Sacred Scripture, he mastered Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and several other languages. Fr. Sngi has taught Sacred Scripture for the past 45 years in various theological institutes in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Meghalaya. He has authored more than 40 books. Among his most outstanding literary contributions are his Khasi-Hebrew, Khasi- Greek, and Khasi- Aramaic dictionaries. He co-translated and edited along with Fr. Henry Fantin, the Khasi Catholic Bible, a landmark literary volume in the Khasi language. He edited a popular Khasi weekly “Ka Sur Shipara” for nearly two decades. During the past several years, Fr. Sngi has been working on a series of 80- volume Bible commentaries in Khasi of which he has completed 23 volumes already. Paying tributes to his contribution to teaching and literature, Fr. Sebastian Karotemprel, one of his first and illustrious students, recalled the outstanding qualities of Fr. Sngi as a teacher, writer and evangeliser. Fr. Sngi has to his credit an “extraordinary range of intellectual, scholarly, missionary, pastoral, social, literary and healing activities” spanning over four score years. He said the church in India, the Salesian Congregation, especially the Northeast India and the Khasi people today are admirers and beneficiaries of the monument that Fr. Sngi is. While thanking the University for the great honour bestowed on him Fr. Sngi recalled the inspiration he drew in his childhood from Fr. Vendrame, Fr.Elias Hopewell and Mgr. Emmanuel Bars, Salesian missionaries, and Mr. Primrose Gathphoh, a Protestant Scholar, who convinced him of the need to make available the living pages of the Holy Bible in simple, popular, idiomatic and dignified language of the people. “I realized that our Khasi people would not easily and quickly reach the total fulfillment of their religious aspirations without the Bible in their own idiomatic language”. I started working immediately, seriously and scientifically to realize their dream and mine, he said. Salesian Provincial Fr. Philip Barjo, who felicitated Fr. Sngi called him “our honour and glory and a great source of inspiration for all.” Besides his strenuous academic and literary activities, Fr. Sngi has toured extensively every part of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills proclaiming the Gospel and teaching with geniality and conviction the inexorable link between Christianity and the traditional Khasi religion. As a priest and healer he has reached out to thousands of people. Fr. Karotemprel described Fr. Sngi as an 84-year old human machine, driving it with an extraordinary physical, mental and psychological stamina as few others have done.