Thursday, April 26, 2007

Syro-Malankara Church - Background/history


The Malankara Syrian Catholic Church is a Major Archiepiscopal Church and is one of the 23 rites of the Universal (Catholic) Church. Rites are individual Churches in communion with the Pope; 22 rites are Eastern, and one is Western. The Latin Rite (commonly referred to as the Roman Catholic rite) is the Western rite. The theology of the Malankara Syrian Catholic rite is the same as the Latin rite, but the liturgy is different.


Here's (quite) a bit of history. :-)


The history of the Malankara Church dates back to A.D. 52, the year in which St. Thomas the Apostle came to India. Over the course of twenty years, St. Thomas preached the Gospel in the southern parts of India, building 7 and ½ churches. The Persian (East Syriac) Church had close relations with the Church in Malabar because of their shared patrimony – the Persian Church also claimed St. Thomas as its founder. It was the Chaldean liturgy that was in use in the Malabar Church until the 17th century and it was Persian bishops who guided the Church.

In the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries arrived in India and the evangelization of India was entrusted to them by the Holy Father. Naturally tensions between the Latin missionaries and the Syriac Christians existed. Unfortunately, these tensions were soon elevated when the missionaries sought to Latinize the liturgy in an attempt to free the Chaldean liturgy of its so-called heresies. The refusal on the part of the Latin missionaries to understand the value of diversity and the refusal on the part of some Indian Christians to give up their liturgical traditions resulted in a split within the Indian Church. In 1653, the Church in India split into two. One group, which would eventually become the Syro-Malabar rite, accepted the Latinized liturgy and Latin authority over them; thus, they officially entered into communion with Rome. Another group, choose to split from the Catholic Church because they wanted to preserve their liturgy and autonomy. Since the arrival of the Latin missionaries, the influence of the Persian Church on the Church in India had declined significantly such that the schismatic group looked to the West Syriac (Antiochene) or Jacobite Church. The Syrian Orthodox or Jacobite Church soon sent bishops to Malankara, beginning with Mar Gregorios in 1663. These bishops, over the course of two centuries, introduced Antiochene elements of the liturgy; in the 19th century the liturgy of the schismatic or Malankara Syrian Orthodox Christians had become Antiochene. Unfortunately, attempts at reunion with Rome failed several times. Moreover, the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church was split multiple times, most recently in the 20th century. The two factions, namely the Malankara Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite), under the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian (Orthodox), and autocephalous Church, fought immensely between each other. The bishops of the Orthodox faction sought to rejoin the Catholic communion because they were in the minority when compared to the Jacobite faction. In 1926, Mar Ivanios (an Orthodox bishop) was authorized to seek reunion with the Catholic Church; he was, however, to seek the preservation of the (now Antiochene) liturgy and the autonomy of the bishops.

On September 20, 1930, Mar Ivanios, along with four others – another bishop, a priest, a deacon, and a layman – reunited with the Roman Church. The other bishops of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, for their own reasons, chose not to reunite. The reunion of Mar Ivanios was the result of much prayer and study. Undeterred by the lack of support from his brother bishops, Mar Ivanios continued because, as he himself put it, “I looked for the Church of Christ and I found that it subsisted in the Catholic Church … If obeying Christ is the primary duty of a Christian, I tried to obey Him … The Church is God’s Church and is not be dealt with according to each one’s whims and fancies. The real body of Christ is the Catholic Church. Those branches separated from the main trunk are destined to wither away.”[1] Mar Ivanios was allowed to preserve the Antiochene liturgy of St. James: all of the Malankara liturgical traditions were preserved. On June 11, 1932, the hierarchy of the Malankara Syrian Catholic Church was formed under the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Trivandrum.

In 2005, the Holy Father, John Paul II, of beloved memory, elevated the Malankara Church to Archiepiscopal status. The Major Archbishop, or Catholicos, is the Head and Father of the Malankara Syrian Catholic Church. With this elevation, the Malankara Syrian Catholic Church now has fullest autonomy possible. According to the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, a Major Archiepiscopal Church has all the rights and privileges of a Patriarchal Church; the only exception being that a new Patriarch has to request communion with Rome whereas the Major Archbishop has to have his election confirmed by the Pope.



[1] Geevarghese Chediath, The Malankara Catholic Church, translated by A.J. Joy Angemadathil (Kottayam, India: Bethany Sister’s Publication, 2003), 100.