Syro-Malabar Church

The Catholic Church in India, OIRSI, Kottayam 2010, pp. XIV + 284, ISBN 978-8188456-56-7

First edition, Mar Thoma Yogam, Rome 2003, pp. 168; second revised edition, Mar Thoma Yogam, Rome 2005, pp. 198. This is a completely revised, elaborated and updated Indian edition of the book. The present volume, the crowning of all the previous versions is the fruit of more than ten years of study, research and teaching at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. This work provides a continuous, precise and coherent history of the Catholic Church in India until the present day in a succint and synoptic manner. The major part of this book is dedicated to the Syro-Malabar Church, the main heir of the ancient Church of St Thomas Christians.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Memory is an important faculty in human beings. If one loses one’s memory, one can neither recognize one’s parents, relatives and friends, nor locate one’s home, city and country. This natural principle is valid even for ecclesial life. If one loses the ecclesial memories, one cannot recognize one’s own Church, its venerable heritage and specific identity.

History, the recording of the collective memory of previous generations, permits the people of the present age to participate in the experiences of the past, which enable them to recognize their roots and to build the future, based on solid foundations as part of an organic process. Similarly the study of church-history emboldens the unprejudiced Christian faithful to recognize the truth, purify their memories, acknowledge the mistakes of the past, make reparation for injustices and master the challenges of the future.

Truth is the soul of history. Without truth, history is simple story or fiction. Historical facts cannot be obliterated or altered, but can be reinterpreted according to the wisdom, socio-cultural ethos and religious tradition of the historian. The pages of the history of a community may not only be composed of splendid achievements, exhilarating episodes and glorious triumphs, but also of despicable failures, horrendous crimes, aching tragedies and blunt errors. The humility to accept the truth and the ability to learn lessons from history are signs of courage and greatness. In this book, on the basis of available documents, historical facts concerning many Churches and communities are narrated as objectively as possible. However, the facts described in this work can be explicated, manipulated and propagated by each community according to its own point of view, but without eliminating the soul of history, namely the truth.

The first chapter of this book is entitled “The Catholic Church in India until the Sixteenth Century: the Church of St Thomas Christians”, because until that time only the “apostolic see” of St Thomas existed in India and the Catholic Church there could be simply identified with the Church of the St Thomas Christians. In spite of the difficulties stemming from the lack of exact historical data, in this chapter we provide a brief account of the apostolic origin, hierarchical structure, canonical status, administrative system, liturgical tradition and sacramental discipline as well as the faith and communion of the Church of St Thomas Christians until the sixteenth century.

In the second chapter we introduce the Latin Church in India, which had its real inception at the beginning of the sixteenth century with the arrival of the Portuguese missionaries. An attempt is made to highlight the origin, nature and functioning of the two institutes, the Portuguese Padroado and the Roman Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, which were responsible for the evangelising ministry in India at that epoch. We consider the origin and growth of the Latin Church in India in the midst of jurisdictional conflicts and power struggles between the aforementioned two missionary agencies, which led to the gradual elimination of the Portuguese Padroado and the erection of the present Latin hierarchy under the Propaganda Fide, stimulating the rapid advancement of this Church.

The arrival of the Portuguese missionaries at the beginning of the sixteenth century opened a new chapter in the history of the Church of St Thomas Christians in India. The initially friendly relationship between the missionaries and the native Christians gradually transmuted into a contrast and collision of cultures, ecclesial traditions, theological visions and canonical institutes. In this struggle the Western missionaries always emerged as the victors because they had the Roman, royal, military and political support. In the third chapter we consider the activities of the Western missionaries in relation to the Church of St Thomas Christians and the main events that led to the division of this Church, which remained one and united until 1653, into Catholic and non-Catholic groups as well as the gradual decline of this Church until its final suppression in 1886 and the enrolment of the Catholic St Thomas Christians in the Latin archdiocese of Verapoly.

The fourth chapter deals with the re-birth of the Catholic section of the Church of St Thomas Christians under the new name Syro-Malabar Church. We describe the circumstances of the separation of the Catholic St Thomas Christians from the Latin archdiocese of Verapoly and the erection of separate vicariates, the appointment of autochthonous bishops, the constitution of the Syro-Malabar hierarchy, the stupendous growth of the Syro-Malabar Church under the governance of indigenous bishops, the erection of different dioceses and ecclesiastical provinces, the elevation of the Syro-Malabar Church to the rank and dignity of a major archiepiscopal Church as well as the present juridical status of this Church.

The fifth chapter, which provides information concerning the origin of the Churches of Antiochene tradition in India, is mainly dedicated to the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. First of all we demonstrate how a section of the St Thomas Christians, after the Coonan Cross Oath in 1653, gradually abandoned the Catholic Church and entered into communion with the Syrian Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, embracing the “Jacobite monophysite” doctrines, the Antiochene liturgy and canonical discipline, and finally forming the Malankara Church. Then we consider the splintering of the Malankara Church into different Orthodox Churches of Antiochene tradition and the full communion of one group with the Roman Pontiff, forming a new Eastern particular Church under the name Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. We also highlight the nature and identity of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the constitution of Syro-Malankara hierarchy, the growth and advancement of this Church, its elevation to the status of a major archiepiscopal Church and its present canonical status.

The book ends with a selected bibliography and three indexes. The author is confident that the present work will offer objective and well documented information concerning the Catholic Church in India and hence contribute to the better concord and collaboration of the three Indian Catholic Churches: Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara, based on truth, justice and charity, in mutual recognition and respect of fundamental rights, distinctive individuality, spiritual heritage and ecclesial identity.