Medieval History, Modern History, Syro Malabar Church, Thomas Christians

Dear Varghese Alookkaran, Our rite does not have anything …

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Comment posted Major Arch Bishop Alencheril Mar Giwargis II Bava-The Patriarch of Syro Malabar Church and The Gate of All India- A Discussion on The Historical Hierarchical Status of The Church of Saint Thomas Christians by M Thomas Antony.

Dear Varghese Alookkaran,

Our rite does not have anything to do with our ethnicity. I think many people get mixed up with rite and ethnicity. Whoever we are- if we are dravidian, jewish or arabic, we have a rite, which is East Syriac. There is no question about it.

Thomas Christians have always been under the jurisdiction of the Church of the East.There is plenty of documentary evidence to show the connection of the Church in India to the Church of the East. Alphonse Mingana, after studying numerous ancient documents and manuscripts, commented that “any attempt to speak of early Christianity in India as different from the East Syrian church, is, in our judgement, bound to fail”. (Alphonse Mingana, Early spread of Christianity in India, The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol 10 p440 ).

Then what is the reasoning for all of us to change our rite to latin rite ?

When the Portuguese arrived in Malabar, they found a flourishing Christian community here, lead by Bishops from Babylon. The initial period was friendly but later, they began to find mistakes in the faith of the Thomas Christians and accused heresy . They forced the Thomas Christians to conform with Roman rite. The Thomas Christians resisted against this religio cultural invasion. Even when they yielded with the spiritual authority, they vehemently resisted for any change in their rite. The Portuguese missionaries, as a last resort, convened a diocesan synod at Udayampeeroor( Diamper) in which, they forced the Archdeacon and the Cathanaars to obey to the decisions of the synod which was meant to Latinise the Church of Saint Thomas. Synod of Diamper was definitely a forceful and illegal invasion of Portuguese Missionaries into the affairs of Saint Thomas Christians. The Archbishop of Goa had no jurisdiction over Saint Thomas Christians. Without any special mandate from the Roman Pontiff, he forcefully entered the Archdiocese of Angamali and convened the Diocesan Synod of Diamper. The conduct of the synod was invalid and illegitimate. The Christians were intimidated and threatened with serious punishments to make them obey. (Jonas Thaliath, The Synod of Diamper, pp172-173 )

They have indeed done some corrections in the spiritual and cultural life of saint Thomas Christians. But many of their boasted corrections are due to ignorance about the Eastern Christianity. For example, they found the Thomas Christians going to Church and praying several times in a day, like the Muslims. They were ignorant about our Yama Prarthanas. They considered this as a heresy and promoted certain other pious activities of the latin Rite. They found very strict fasting rules of Thomas Christians and tried to dilute it. But, I agree, certain malpractices like untouchability, certain Hindu practices similar to witchcraft etc were corrected. These are no reasons for us to get converted to Latin Rite.

I think the Latinisation of Syro Malabar Church became easy after the natives were made Bishops. When the foreigners were ruling us, we were united and we vehemently resisted Latinisations. What Menesis and Ros couldn’t do, were easily done by our native Prelates. They were Latin trained. Many of them thought that Syro Malabar Church was an offshoot of the Latin rite. That was why, they wanted to merge with the Latin rite creating a single rite for India. If we take the argument of single rite in India, it should be Syro Chaldean, not Latin, as the Latin rite is definitely foreign to us where as the Syro Chaldean, as many scholars say as ‘Indo Chaldean’ is an inculturated rite adopting many Indian religio cultural elements into the East Syriac rite.

There nothing called ‘Changanacherryism’. What is accused as ‘Changanacherryism’ is what the Roman Curia asked us to do. We believe that those guidelines are under the influence of the Holy Spirit.