Roman Pontifical into Syriac and the Beginning of Liturgical Reform in the Syro-Malabar Church: History of the Revision and publication of the Chaldean and Syro-Malabar Pontifical, OIRSI, Kottayam 2012, pp. 367, ISBN 978-81-548-88456-86-4.
https://archive.org/details/RomanPontificalIntoSyriac
In this book, co-authored by Dr. Joseph Kollara, the authors present 44 important documents, which provide us with precise information concerning the start of liturgical restoration and reform in the Syro-Malabar Church, efforts of the bishops of this Church to have a translation of the Roman Pontifical into Syriac and to obtain the approval of the Holy See, studies and votes of the experts and consultants of the Oriental Congregation, reports, discussions and resolutions of the plenary meetings of the Cardinals as well as important decisions and directives of the Roman Pontiffs. This book is useful not only for the Syro-Malabar Church, but also for the other Churches of East Syrian or Chaldean tradition.
General Introduction
After
about three centuries (1599-1886) of Western governance over the St Thomas
Christians, when the Latin hierarchy was established in India on 1 September
1886, the ancient archdiocese of Cranganore was
definitively suppressed, the vicariate apostolic of Verapoly was elevated to
the status of a metropolitan archdiocese of the Latin Church with Quilon as its
suffragan see and all the Catholic St Thomas Christians became members of the
said archdiocese. Through the apostolic letter Quod iampridem of 20 May 1887, Pope Leo XIII separated the Eastern Catholics
from the Latin Christians of the archdiocese of Verapoly and constituted for
them two Syro-Malabar vicariates apostolic: Trichur and Kottayam, but the
Vicars Apostolic were still Latins.
With the apostolic brief Quae rei
sacrae of 28 July 1896 Pope Leo XIII reorganized the territory, erecting
the three vicariates apostolic of Trichur, Ernakulam and Changanacherry. Three
native priests were appointed as Vicars Apostolic: John Menacherry, titular bishop
of Parai and Vicar Apostolic of Trichur, Mathew Makil, titular bishop of Tralli
and Vicar Apostolic of Changanacherry and Aloysius Pareparambil, titular bishop
of Tiana and Vicar Apostolic of Ernakulam. The Apostolic Delegate Ladislao Michele Zaleski consecrated the first
three Indian bishops on 25 October 1896 in the cathedral church of Kandy in Sri
Lanka, where he had the residence.
The
liturgical books of any Church mainly include the Missal, the Liturgy of the
Hours, the Ritual, the Pontifical, the Lectionary, the Calendar etc. While the
Ritual is the book of the priests containing the liturgical ceremonies that can
be performed by a priest, the Pontifical is the special liturgical book of the
bishops, enshrining rites and ceremonies commonly conducted by a bishop such as
ordinations, consecration of churches and altars as well as the blessing of
holy Myron. In the West the sacrament of Confirmation is also part of the
Pontifical, since its celebration is reserved to the bishops.
Just after
the consecration of the aforementioned three native Syro-Malabar bishops, a
grave problem emerged with regard to the Pontifical to be used by them. They
had no hesitation or doubt about the matter. Under the guidance of the
Apostolic Delegate the first decision unanimously taken by the native bishops
was to translate the Roman Pontifical into Syriac, since at that time all the
other liturgical celebrations of their Church were in that language. Instead of
adopting the easy solution of revising, updating and adapting the Syriac
Pontifical, the bishops took up the herculean task of translating the Roman
Pontifical into Syriac language.
The
Pontifical which the Syro-Malabar bishops endeavoured to translate was: Pontificale Romanum Jussu Editum a Benedicto
XIV et Leone XIII recognitum et castigatum. As is evident from the title
the Roman Pontifical in question, first promulgated by Pope Benedict XIV, was
again revised and approved by Leo XIII, and published by the Sacred
Congregation of Rites in 1895. The Pontifical was a huge liturgical book with
329 pages. After the preliminary items the book was divided into three parts
with an appendix (pp. 302-329). The first part (pp. 17-122) contains various
rites regarding persons such as the sacrament of Confirmation, minor and major
ordinations, blessings and consecration of kings, queens, military personal etc.;
the second part (pp. 123-225) enshrines the blessing of the first stone for the
building of a new church, consecration of churches and about 27 items of
blessings of things on various occasions; the third part (pp. 226-301) has 31
rites and ceremonies, including various rites concerning the suspension,
reconciliation, deposition, degradation and restitution of those in holy
Orders, excommunication and absolution, the order for the solemn reception of
kings and queens, etc. This is the Pontifical, which the first Syro-Malabar bishops
decided to translate into Syriac.
We will
highlight the repercussions of this decision and briefly outline the remaining history of the Syriac Roman Pontifical according to the
chronological progression of events, as brief introductions to each of the four
sections (see below) and to each of the 44 documents. We give below some
further preliminary considerations which can help readers to comprehend the
documents.
1. The Expression Suriani
Suriani
is the Malayalam word for Syriac or Syrian, which was the liturgical language
of the Eastern Christians of India until the introduction of local languages in
1962. Like the expressions “Latin Church” and “Latin Christians” or simply
“Latins”, formerly “Suriani Church”, “Suriani Catholics”, “Suriani Christians”
and “Suriani” were used to indicate the St Thomas Christians and their Church.
From the second half of the nineteenth century on, the terms “Suriani” or
“Suriani Catholics” were consistently used even in the documents and
communications of the Holy See until the name Syro-Malabar became prevalent.
Especially after the Schisms of Rokos (1861-1862) and Mellus (1874-1882) the Holy
See avoided the expression “Chaldean” and preferred the word Suriani so as to
indicate that the Indian Eastern Church had no connection with the Chaldean
Church. In our English translation we have maintained all the aforementioned
expressions, as they are found in the original documents.
2. Roman Pontiffs and the Apostolic See
The
documents presented in this book to some extent cover the history of the
liturgical reform of the Syro-Malabar Church from 1896 to 1959. During this
period the Roman Pontiffs Leo XIII (1878-1903), St Pius X (1903-1914), Benedict
XV (1914-1922), Pius XI (1922-1939) and Pius XII (1939-1958) who governed the
universal Church, were involved in the liturgical reform process, emitting
their own authentic decisions or granting their approval to the resolutions
made by the competent dicasteries of the Roman Curia.
At the
time of the appointment of native bishops in 1896, like the other Eastern
Catholic Churches, the Syro-Malabar Church was also under the authority of the
Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide for the Affairs of the Oriental Rite, erected
by Pope Pius IX on 6 January 1862. The Latin section and the Oriental section
of Propaganda Fide had the same prefect, but two separate bishops secretaries.
The prefects of Propaganda Fide during the period under our study were:
Mieczyslaw Halka Ledochowski (1892-1902), Girolamo Maria Gotti (1902-1916) and
Domenico Serafini (1916-1918).
On 1 May
1917 by the motu proprio Dei Providentis
Pope Benedict XV erected the ‘Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church’ and
all the Eastern Catholic Churches, of course including the Syro-Malabar Church,
were placed under its authority. As the Pope himself decided, the Oriental
section of Propaganda Fide ceased to exist on 30 November 1917 and the new
Congregation began to function from 1 December 1917. Naturally the competence
over the liturgy of the Eastern Churches passed to the new Congregation, to
which was also transferred in the course of time the entire documentation
concerning Eastern liturgies. Since at that time the Roman Pontiff himself was
the Prefect of the Oriental Congregation, its administrative head was a
cardinal secretary. During the period of the translation, revision and
publication of the Chaldean and Syro-Malabar Pontifical the secretaries were:
Nicolò Marini (1917-1922) Giovanni Tacci Porcelli (1922-1927), Luigi Sincero
(1927-1936), Eugene Tisserant (1936-1959) and Amaleto Giovanni Cicognani
(1959-1961).
3. Apostolic Delegates in India
Four
Apostolic Delegates accomplished their ministry as representatives of the Pope
and the Holy See during the period under consideration. At that time there was
only one Apostolic Delegate for all the countries in the Indian subcontinent,
designated by the general name “East Indies”, which included also Sri Lanka. As
we have seen above, when the first Syro-Malabar bishops were appointed in 1896
the Apostolic Delegate of East Indies was Ladislao Michele Zaleski (1892-1916),
titular archbishop of Thebae (Tebe), who had his headquarters at Kandy in Sri
Lanka. He was a passionate advocate of the Syriac version of the Roman
Pontifical for the use of the Syro-Malabar Church. Like Zaleski all the
Aposotolic Delegates who succeeded him: Pietro Fumasoni Biondi (1916-1919),
Pietro Pisani (1019-1924), Edward Aloysius Mooney (1926-1931) and Leo Peter
Kierkels (1931-1952) favoured the Syriac translation of the Roman Pontifical
for the use of the Syro-Malabar Church.
4. Scope, Method and Content
The
scope of this work is to make original sources available to scholars with the
intention of promoting objective critical studies about liturgical restoration
and reform in the Syro-Malabar Church, which has often,
in the past, been guided by blind passion rather than by sound reason. We will present all the important documents
from the time of the first decision of Syro-Malabar bishops to translate the
Roman Pontifical into Syriac in 1896 until the promulgation of the Chaldean
Pontifical in 1957. Generally the documents provide us with information
concerning the start of liturgical restoration and reform, efforts of the
Syro-Malabar bishops to have a translation of the Roman Pontifical into Syriac
and to obtain the approval of the Holy See, studies and votes of experts and
consultants, reports, discussions and resolutions of the plenary meetings as
well as important decisions and directives of the Roman Pontiffs.
After
this general introduction and the list of documents with indication of sources,
the book is divided into two parts: the first part presents the English
translation of the documents, while the second part is dedicated to original
texts. In order to facilitate continuous reading and to provide logical order
and coherence the first part is divided into four sections,
without interrupting, however, the continuous numbering of the documents. In the second part the documents are reproduced
in the original language with the same number and English heading, so that
those who wish to consult the original, can easily do so. Since all the
documents are also reproduced in the original language, this book can be
consulted even by non-English speaking scholars. Footnotes and explanations
found in some of the documents are maintained both in the English translation
and in the originals. The indexes at the end of this book are based on the
English version alone.
