Robert Scheuermeier

Robert Scheuermeier (born July 31, 1927) was the first Principal of the Karnataka Theological College,Mangalore, a Seminary affiliated to the country's first University, the Senate of Serampore College (University), Serampore.

Scheuermeier was ordained in 1952 by the Swiss Reformed Church of the Canton of Berne, Switzerland and held ministerial roles at the Churches in Utzenstorf from 1952 to 1954 and at Reichenbach im Kandertal from 1954 to 1956. After a decade of overseas work in India from 1957 to 1967, Scheuermeier resumed the role of a Minister, this time at Kirchberg, Bern from 1967 till 1981.

Scheuermeier came to India in 1957 and undertook language studies in Kannada for a year and began to teach at the Basel Evangelical Mission Theological Seminary (BEMTS) at Mangalore. In 1960, when S. J. Samartha, the Seminary Principal moved to the United Theological College, Bangalore to teach Religions, the Seminary Council appointed Scheuermeier as the Seminary Principal.

By this time, ecumenical conversations were taking place to merge the Basel Mission with the Church of South India. As a prelude to it, the two vernacular medium (Kannada) Protestant regional seminaries in Karnataka affiliated to the Senate of Serampore College (University), namely,

were merged in 1965 resulting in the formation of the Karnataka Theological College in the premises of the erstwhile Basel Evangelical Mission Theological Seminary in Mangalore. Scheuermeier was appointed as the first Principal of the new entity, a post which he held for two years until 1967, when he left India for good making the College Council to appoint the Old Testament Scholar C. D. Jathanna, who had by that time returned from the University of Hamburg, Germany where he was pursuing doctoral studies.