The Syro-Malabar Church, also known as the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic Church based in Kerala, India. It is a sui iuris (autonomous) particular church in full communion with the Holy See and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO). The major archbishop presides over the entire church. The incumbent Major Archbishop is Raphael Thattil, serving since January 2024. The Syro-Malabar Synod of Bishops canonically convoked and presided over by the major archbishop constitutes the supreme authority of the church. The Major Archiepiscopal Curia of the church is based in Kakkanad, Kochi. Syro-Malabar is a prefix reflecting the church's use of the East Syriac Rite liturgy and origins in Malabar. The name has been in usage in official Vatican documents since the nineteenth century.
The Synod of Diamper (Udayamperoor Synod) (Malayalam: ഉദയംപേരൂർ സൂനഹദോസ്, romanized: Udayampērūṟ Sūnahadōs), held at Udayamperoor (known as Diamper in non-vernacular sources) in June 1599, was a diocesan synod, or council, that created rules and regulations for the ancient Saint Thomas Christians (also known as Mar Thoma Nasranis) of the Malabar Coast, a part of modern-day Kerala state, India, formally subjugating them and downgrading their whole Metropolitanate of India as the Diocese of Angamale, a suffragan see to the Archdiocese of Goa administered by Latin Church Padroado missionaries. This synod also introduced forced Liturgical Latinisation and the eschewal of local practices and beliefs, leading to a significant ecclesial protest by Saint Thomas Christians known as Coonan Cross Oath and a subsequent schism in the mid-17th century.
Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes or Alexeu de Jesu de Meneses was a Catholic prelate that served as Archbishop of Goa, Archbishop of Braga and Viceroy of Portugal during the Philippine Dynasty.
The Coonan Cross Oath, also known as the Great Oath of Bent Cross, the Leaning Cross Oath or the Oath of the Slanting Cross, taken on 3 January 1653 in Mattancherry, was a public avowal by members of the Saint Thomas Christians of the Malabar region in India, that they would not submit to the Jesuits and Latin Catholic hierarchy, nor accept Portuguese dominance in ecclesiastical and secular life.
The Catholic Church in India is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope. There are over 20 million Catholics in India, representing around 1.55% of the total population, and the Catholic Church is the single largest Christian church in India. There are 10,701 parishes that make up 174 dioceses and eparchies, which are organised into 29 ecclesiastical provinces. Of these, 132 dioceses are of the Latin Church, 31 of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and 11 of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Despite the very small population that Indian Catholics make up percentage wise, India still has the second-largest Christian population in Asia after the Catholic Church in the Philippines.
The history of the Church of the East in India is dated to 52 AD by apocryphal sources and to the 9th century by the Quilon Syrian copper plates, the latter of which is considered the earliest reputable dating for Christians in the Indian subcontinent.
This is a timeline of the history of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India.
The Malankara Church, also known as Puthenkur, is the historic unified body of West Syriac Saint Thomas Christian denominations which claim ultimate origins from the missions of Thomas the Apostle. This community, under the leadership of Thoma I, opposed the Padroado Jesuits as well as the Propaganda Carmelites of the Latin Church, following the historical Coonan Cross Oath of 1653. The Malankara Church's divisions and branchings have resulted in present-day Churches that include the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the Saint Thomas Anglicans of the Church of South India and the St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India.
The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Goa and Daman encompasses the Goa state and the Damaon territory in the Konkan region, by the west coast of India. The ecclesiastical province of Goa and Damaon includes a suffragan diocese, the Sindhudurg Diocese that comprises the Malvani areas of. The Archbishop of Goa also holds the titles of Primate of the East and Patriarch of the East Indies, also hold the title of the Syrian Catholic Primate of the Archdiocese of Cranganore. The beginnings lie in the Padroado system of Portuguese Goa and Damaon, in the early 1900s the primatial see was transferred back to the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, as the Padroado system of the Indo-Portuguese era was being dismantled.
Metropolitanate of India was an East Syriac ecclesiastical province of the Church of the East, at least nominally, from the seventh to the sixteenth century. The Malabar region (Kerala) of India had long been home to a thriving Eastern Christian community, known as the Saint Thomas Christians. The community traces its origins to the evangelical activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. The Christian communities in India used the East Syriac Rite, the traditional liturgical rite of the Church of the East. They also adopted some aspects of Dyophysitism of Theodore of Mopsuestia, often inaccurately referred as Nestorianism, in accordance with theology of the Church of the East. It is unclear when the relation between Saint Thomas Christian and the Church of the East was established. Initially, they belonged to the metropolitan province of Fars, but were detached from that province in the 7th century, and again in the 8th, and given their own metropolitan bishop.
St. Thomas Cathedral is the Syro Malabar Catholic cathedral of the eparchy of Irinjalakuda in India. It presently exists under the nomenclature and the Canonical Status as Cathedral in the Wake of the Origin of the New Eparchy, effected by the amalgamation of the two independent and important parishes of the locality, namely, St. George’s Forane Church and St. Mary’s church, which were amicably situated side by side for about a century.
The Saint Thomas Christian denominations are Christian denominations from Kerala, India, which traditionally trace their ultimate origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. They are also known as "Nasranis" as well. The Syriac term "Nasrani" is still used by St. Thomas Christians in Kerala. It is part of the Eastern Christianity institution.
Gīwargīs of the Cross, also spelled Geevarghese of Cross and George of Cross, was an archdeacon (arkkadyakon) and leader of the Saint Thomas Christian community of India. He was the son of the elder brother of Giwargis of Christ. By the last year of Bishop Mar Abraham, he became the Archdeacon. After the Bishop's death in 1597, he led the Indian Church. He led the church amidst Portuguese intervention. The Synod of Diamper (1599) was held during his time. In 1601, Francis Ros became Bishop, appointed by the Archbishop of Goa, Aleixo de Menezes. In the beginning there was cordiality, but the deliberate downgrading of Angamaly and the inertia of Bishop Ros frustrated him. When the Archdeacon protested, Ros excommunicated him. In 1615, the Bishop and Archdeacon reconciled each other, but again fell out later. The next Bishop, Etienne de Brito, also did not recognize the Archdeacon's ecclesiastical status. He led the church in a period of severe stress and turmoil, and held it together. After his time and his brother's time the root family of Pakalomattam became heirless. The only son shifted residence to Alappatt house. He is believed to have been buried in the forefront of Pakalomattam Thravadu (Kuravilangadu).
Mar Hormizd Cathedral, locally known as the Eastern Church of Angamaly or the Cathedral Church, is a Syro-Malabar church in Angamaly, India. It was created cathedral in 1577 by Mar Abraham, the last East Syriac Metropolitan to reach Malabar Coast. It is one of the oldest and is historically the most important of the three ancient Syrian churches in Angamaly. It is dedicated to Mar Hormizd, a seventh-century East Syriac saint.
St. Mary's Jacobite Syrian Soonoro Cathedral, or Angamaly Cheriyapally, is an ancient Jacobite Syrian church located in Angamaly. Founded in 1564 by Archdeacon Giwargis of Christ, it is one of the most prominent and ancient Syriac Orthodox churches in Kerala. In the seventeenth century it was the residence of Archdeacon Thomas Parambil, who eventually got consecrated as bishop Mar Thoma I following the Coonan Cross Oath in 1653. It was initially the seat of the Archdeacon and later the Marthoma methrans, the local heads of the Malankara Church and hence held an important position in the church for several centuries.
The Archdiocese of Cranganore or Cranganor and Angamaly was a latinised Syriac Padroado Archdiocese in Kodungallur, Kerala, India. This diocese is a product of so-called Synod of Diamper held in Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Angamaly and All India. Its headquarters was first at St. Thomas church, Cranganore Fort until 1662 and then at Puthenchira church for more than a century. Mar Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar, Administrator of the diocese moved its headquarters to Vadayar due to invasion of Tipu Sultan. Mar Poulose Pandari, a Chaldean Bishop belongs to Puthenchira parish of this diocese.
Angamāly Padiyōla is a historic declaration of the Syrian Catholic/ Syro Malabar (Paḻayakūṟ) Saint Thomas Christians proclaimed in 1787 at the Great Church of Saint George in Angamāly. This document made a strong appeal to the pope for the consecration of a native bishop for the community and demanded autonomy for their Church which was forcibly brought under the Latin Church's jurisdiction.
The Paḻayakūṟ, also known as Romo-Syrians or Syrian Catholics of Malabar, are the East Syriac denominations of the Saint Thomas Christian Church, which claim ultimate apostolic origin from the Indian mission of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century AD.
Jacob Pakalomattam was an Archdeacon of the Saint Thomas Christian community in India in the years preceding the Synod of Diamper in 1599. He was a native of Muttuchira and belonged to the Pakalomattam dynastic family. His activities were based in the Church of Ruha d'Qudisha in Muttuchira. He owed his staunch allegiance to the traditionalist Eliah Patriarchate of the Church of the East and Metropolitan Mar Shemon, who was sent to India by Patriarch Eliya VI Barmama. He protested against the Latinising attempts of the Portuguese Padroado and resisted the Chaldean Catholic attempts of reconciliation led by Joseph Sulaqa and Abraham of Angamaly. Throughout his archdeaconate, he is known to have rebelled against the Chaldean Catholic archdeacons including Givargis of Cross.
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