The Church of the East was often separated from the other ancient churches due to its location in the Parthian Empire, an ancient rival of the Greek and (Latin) Roman Empires. When Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople was declared a heretic by the Council of Ephesus, the Church of the East refused to acknowledge his deposition because he held the same christological position. Later, the "Anaphora of Mar Nestorius" came to be used by Church of the East, which for this reason has been pejoratively labelled the "Nestorian Church" by some other Christian groups.
In 1980, Pope John Paul II said that the Syro-Malabar Church "has not ever been severed from the communion with the Church of Rome, in a continuity that the enormous geographic distance has never been able to break."[4]
In 1122, Mar John, Metropolitan-designate of India, with his suffragens went to Constantinople, thence to Rome, and received the pallium from Pope Callixtus II.[5] He related to the Pope and the cardinals the miracles that were wrought at the tomb of St. Thomas at Mylapore.[6] These visits, apparently from the Saint Thomas Christians of India, cannot be confirmed, as evidence of both is only available from secondary sources.[7][8][9] Later, a letter surfaced during the 1160s claiming to be from Prester John. There were over one hundred different versions of the letter published over the next few centuries. Most often, the letter was addressed to Emanuel I, the Byzantine Emperor of Rome, though some were addressed to the Pope or the King of France.
A Latin text with its Hebrew translation reads as follows:
"Praete janni invenitur ascendendo in Kalicut in arida..."[10]
This is true proof and well-known knowledge about the Jews who are found there near Prester John.
Reading the Hebrew letters of Prester John shows that Prester John lived in India; or to be more precise, in Malabar (southern India).[10]
Connecting Prester John with India is inevitable from the Hebrew text on the one hand, while parts of the legend will support the Indian origin on the other. Firstly, India is mentioned several times in these letters (pp.41, 89, 107, 119, and more). Secondly, Kalicut which was one of the most important port cities in Malabar (the place where Vasco da Gama was sent), is mentioned in one of the letters. Thirdly, these facts would definitely suffice, but further evidence appears in the form of this statements:[10]
That is, the author knew that St. Thomas was buried in India, a belief held by the Christians of southern India.[12] Not only that, but the author of the letters knew (p.133) about "St. Thomas holiday", which is, apparently, St. Thomas Memorial Day held by the same Christians on 3 July.[13]
Fourth, the author of the letters mentioned that pepper grew in his land (pp.55, 91, 131), pepper being common in Malabar.[14] Fifth, there are some stories in the letters concerning warriors riding elephants. It is well known that, unlike the African elephant, only the Asian elephant could be trained.[10][15]
Mar Ya'qob Metropolitan of India and Patriarch Yahballaha III
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Indian church was again dependent upon the Church of the East. The dating formula in the colophon to a manuscript copied in June 1301 in the church of Mar Quriaqos in Cranganore mentions Patriarch Yahballaha III (whom it calls Yahballaha V) and Metropolitan Yaqob of India. Cranganore, described in this manuscript as "the royal city", was doubtless the metropolitan seat of India at this time.[16]
In the 1320s, the anonymous biographer of the patriarch Yahballaha III and his friend Rabban Bar Sauma praised the achievement of the Church of the East in converting "the Indians, Chinese and Turks".[17] India was listed as one of the Church of the East's "provinces of the exterior" by the historian ʿAmr in 1348.[18]
Yahballaha maintained contacts with the Byzantine Empire and with Latin Christendom. In 1287, when Abaqa Khan's son and successor Arghun Khan sought an ambassador for an important mission to Europe, Yaballaha recommended his former teacher Rabban Bar Sauma, who held the position of Visitor-general. Arghun agreed, and Bar Sauma made a historic journey through Europe; meeting with the Pope and many monarchs; and bringing gifts, letters, and European ambassadors with him on his return. Via Rabban Sauma, Yahballaha received a ring from the Pope's finger, and a papal bull which recognized Yahballaha as the patriarch of all the eastern Christians.[19]
In May 1304, Yahballaha made profession of the Catholic faith in a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XI. But a union with Rome was blocked by his Nestorian bishops.
In 1439, Pope Eugene IV sent an apostolic letter through his legates to Thomas, the Villarvattom king: "To our dearest son in Jesus the great king Thomas of India happiness and apostolic benediction. We have been often told that you and your subjects are true and faithful Christians".[20]Udayamperoor (known as Diamper in Portuguese), the capital of this kingdom, was the venue of the famous Synod of Diamper of 1599. It was held in the All Saints Church there. The venue was apparently chosen on account of the place having been the capital of a Christian principality.[21]
When, on 6 April 1553, Pope Julius III confirmed John Sulacca as Chaldean Patriarch, the Pope said that the discipline and liturgy of the Chaldeans had already been approved by his predecessors, Nicholas I (858-867), Leo X (1513–1521), and Clement VII (1523–1534). A Papal letter also mentions Patriarch Simon Mamma as a patriarch of the Christians in Malabar. This shows that Chaldean Patriarchs in communion with Rome at times presided over the Christians of Malabar.
When the Portuguese arrived in Malabar, they assumed that the four bishops present were Nestorian. Their report of 1504, addressed to the Chaldean Patriarch, their being startled by the absence of images and by the use of leavened bread; but this was in accordance with Chaldean usage. The Christians paid the expenses of the Papal delegate Marignoli.[22][clarification needed]
St. Francis Xavier—in a letter dated 14 January 1549, from Cochin to St. Ignatius Loyola—asks for indulgences for certain churches, saying, "This would be to increase the piety of the natives who are descended from the converts of St. Thomas and are called Christians of St. Thomas." In another letter—dated 28 January 1549 to Rodriguez,[clarification needed]—St. Francis Xavier asks for indulgences for a church at Cranganore, "which is very piously frequented by the Christians of St. Thomas, to be a consolation for these Christians and to increase piety."
As saints are notoriously keen to detect heresy and as indulgences cannot be granted to schismatics, these letters of St. Francis Xavier show that the Christians of Malabar were in communion with Rome even before the arrival of Mar Joseph in 1555. When the Portuguese deported Mar Joseph to Portugal, it was not the Nestorian Patriarch but the Chaldean Patriarch who sent Mar Abraham to take his place. This appears from Action III, Decree X of the third provincial council at Goa in 1585, which states that Mar Abraham came as Archbishop of Angamale, with a letter from Pope Pius IV. A letter from Pope Gregory XIII that was written on 29 November 1578 to Mar Abraham asks Abraham not to convert his flock, but to convert non-Christians only. [23]
The Synod of Diamper of 1599 marked the formal subjugation of the Malabar Syriac Christian community to the Latin Church.
...a bishop of Armenia (Mesopotamia) by the name of Jacob Abuna has been serving God and Your Highness in these regions for forty-five years. He is a very old, virtuous, and saintly man, and, at the same time, one who has been neglected by Your Highness and by almost all of those who are in India. God is granting him his reward, since he desires to assist Him by himself, without employing us as a means to console his servants. He is being helped here solely by the priests of St. Francis. Y. H. should write a very affectionate letter to him, and one of its paragraphs should include an order recommending him to the governors, to the veadores da fazenda, and to the captains of Cochin so that he may receive the honour and respect which he deserves when he comes to them with a request on behalf of the Christians of St. Thomas. Your Highness should write to him and earnestly entreat him to undertake the charge of recommending you to God, since YH. has a greater need of being supported by the prayers of the bishop than the bishop has need of the temporal assistance of Y.H. He has endured much in his work with the Christians of St Thomas.[2][3]
In that same year, Francis Xavier also wrote to his Jesuit colleague and Provincial of Portugal, Fr. Simon Rodrigues, giving him the following description:
Fifteen thousand paces from Cochin there is a fortress owned by the king with the name of Cranganore. It has a beautiful college, built by Frey [Wente], a companion of the bishop, in which there are easily a hundred students, sons of native Christians, who are named after St. Thomas. There are sixty villages of these Thomas Christians around this fortress, and the students for the college as I have said, are obtained from them. There are two churches in Cranganore, one of St. Thomas, which is highly revered by the Thomas Christians.[2][3]
This attitude of St. Francis Xavier, and of the Franciscans before him, does not reflect any of the animosity and intolerance that kept creeping in with the spread of the Tridentine spirit of the Counter-Reformation, which tended to foster a uniformity of belief and practice. It is possible to follow the lines of argument of young Portuguese historians, such as Joéo Paulo Oliveira e Cosca, yet such arguments seem to discount the Portuguese cultural nationalism in their colonial expansion and the treatment of the natives. Documents recently found in the Portuguese national archives help to confirm a greater openness or pragmatism in the first half of the 16th century.[3][24][clarification needed]
1 2 3 4 "Christen und Gewürze": Konfrontation und Interaktion kolonialer und indigener Christentumsvarianten Klaus Koschorke (Hg.)Book in German, English, Spanish, 1998 Page 31,32
1 2 3 4 Prester John: Fiction and History by Meir Bar-Ilan[Senior Lecturer, Talmud Department and Jewish History Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 52900 ISRAEL]
↑ Actually, the Hebrew text reads 'the unclean Thomas', because the Hebrew translator did not want to admit the holiness of one of the apostles, and therefore changed the title.
↑ On the Christians of southern India that relate their beginning to St. Thomas, see: L. W. Brown, The Indian Christians of St Thomas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.
↑ Pepper was one of the exports of India from ancient times. See: R. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, second revised edition, London: Curzon Press, 1974, pp. 180 ff. On the export of exotic animals from India, see ibid, p. 145 ff.
↑ Father Nidhiry: A History of His Times by Prof. Abraham Nidhiry
↑ Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, by H.J. Coleridge, S.J., ii. 74 90.
↑ Arquivio Nacional torre do Tombo Lisbo:Nucleo Antigo N 875 contains a summary of letters from india written in 1525 and also the kings replay to it :Cf.OLIVERIA E COSTA, Portuguese, Apendice Documental 170-178
The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani, Malankara Nasrani, or Nasrani Mappila, are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Kerala, who currently employ the Eastern and Western liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity. They trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. The Saint Thomas Christians had been historically a part of the hierarchy of the Church of the East but are now divided into several different Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and independent bodies, each with their own liturgies and traditions. They are Malayalis and speak Malayalam. Nasrani or Nazarene is a Syriac term for Christians, who were among the first converts to Christianity in the Near East.
The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic church based in Kerala, India. The Syro-Malabar Church is an autonomous particular church in full communion with the pope and the worldwide Catholic Church, including the Latin Church and the 22 other Eastern Catholic Churches, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO). The Church is headed by the Metropolitan and Gate of all India Major Archbishop Mar George Cardinal Alencherry. 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 coined from the words Syriac as the church employs the East Syriac Rite liturgy, and Malabar which is the historical name for modern Kerala. The name has been in usage in official Vatican documents since the nineteenth century.
The Synod of Diamper , held at Udayamperoor in June 1599, was a diocesan synod, or council, that created rules and regulations for the ancient Saint Thomas Christians 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 many Latin practices in the liturgy of the Saint Thomas Christians which they had been following from centuries. The forced Latinization and eschewal of the Eastern and local practices and beliefs led to a massive protest by Saint Thomas Christians known as Coonan Cross Oath and subsequent schism among them the by mid-17th century.
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. There are various versions about the wording of oath, one version being that the oath was directed against the Portuguese, another that it was directed against Jesuits, yet another version that it was directed against the authority of Church of Rome
The Chaldean Syrian Church of India is an Eastern Christian denomination, based in Thrissur, in India. It is organized as a metropolitan province of the Assyrian Church of the East, and represents traditional Christian communities of the East Syriac Rite along the Malabar Coast of India. It is headed by Mar Aprem Mooken, Metropolitan of India, who is in full communion with Patriarch Mar Awa III, head of the Assyrian Church of the East. Metropolitan is assisted by two Bishops, Mar Yohannan Yoseph, and Mar Awgin Kuriakose.
The Catholic Church in India is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the leadership of the Romanus Pontifex and the Curia in the Diocese of Rome. 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, 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 Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Irinjalakuda-Kodungallur is a suffragan eparchy in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Syro-Malabar Catholic Archeparchy of Thrissur in Kerala state's Thrissur District, southern India.It is part of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church (which follows the Syro-Malabar Rite, the Indian variant of the Syro-Oriental Rite.
Palliveettil Chandy also known as Parambil Chandy was a bishop of the Catholic Saint Thomas Christians. He is also the first known native Indian bishop. He was the bishop of the East Syriac Rite (Chaldaean) faction after the Coonan Cross Oath in 1653. This faction returned to full communion with the Holy See of Rome, it would later become known as the modern-day Eastern Catholic Syro-Malabar Church. Mar Chandy's tomb is at the Marth Mariam Major Archiepiscopal Church at Kuravilangad.
Mar Podippara Ouseph Placid Malpan also known as Placidachan was an Indian Syriac Catholic priest and scholar of the St. Thomas Christian community. He was a scholar in East Syriac language and liturgy. A book published on the tenth anniversary of his death calls him one of the greatest ecclesiastical luminaries of the 20th century in India. He was a member of the Syro Malabar Church and was ordained a priest from the Eastern Catholic religious institute of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (C.M.I.). He was also a theologian, liturgist, orator, professor, ecumenist, and author.
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.
Yahballaha III, known in earlier years as Rabban Marcos or Yahballaha V, was Patriarch of the East from 1281 to 1317. As patriarch, Yahballaha headed the Church of the East during the severe persecutions under the reign of khans Ghazan and his successor Öljaitü. He acknowledged the primacy of the Pope and tried to form a church union, which was rejected by the Nestorian bishops of the Church of the East.
St. Thomas Cathedral is the Syro Malabar Catholic cathedral of the eparchy of Irinjalakuda in India got its present existence under the nomenclature and the Canonical Status as Cathedral in the Wake of the Origin of the New Eparchy. This was 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 amicably situated side by side for about a century.
The Saint Thomas Christian denominations are traditional Christian denominations from Kerala, India, who trace their 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.
Abraham of Angamaly was the last East Syrian bishop of the See of Angamaly, who entered into communion with Rome in 1565 and who was the last link in Angamaly from the long line of the bishops from the East Syriac bishops sent from the Church of the East to the Saint Thomas Christians. He first came to India in 1556 from the traditionalist patriarchate. Deposed from his position in 1558, he was taken to Lisbon by the Portuguese, escaped at Mozambique and left for his mother church in Mesopotamia, entered into communion with the Chaldean patriarchate and Rome in 1565, received his episcopal ordination from the Latin patriarch of Venice as arranged by Pope Pius IV (1559–65) in Rome. Subsequently, Abraham was appointed by Pope as Archbishop of Angamaly.
Mar Yaqob of India, also known as Mar Jacob, was a metropolitan bishop of the St Thomas Christians of Malabar. The history and legends of the East Syriac prelates in India prior to the arrival of European explorers are shrouded in mystery because of the unavailability of surviving documents. The Vatican Syrian codex 22, the oldest surviving Syrian manuscript written in Malabar, specifically mentions an East Syriac bishop who was residing in Malabar at that time. According to this ancient document,, which was written by a Deacon named Zachariah bar Joseph address Mar Jacob as Metropolitan and director of the holy see of the Apostle St Thomas, the great captain and the director of the entire holy church of India.
Several historical evidences shed light on a significant Malankara–Persian ecclesiastical relationship that spanned centuries. While an ecclesiastical relationship existed between the Saint Thomas Christians of India and the Church in Sassanid Empire in the earlier centuries, closer ecclesiastical ties developed as early as seventh century, when India became an ecclesiastical province of the Church of the East, albeit restricted to matters of purely ecclesiastical nature such as ordination of priests, and not involved in matters of temporal administration. This relationship endured until the Portuguese protectorate of Cochin of Malabar came to be in 16th century, and the Portuguese discovery of a sea route to India. The Christians who came under the two ancient yet distinct lineages of Malankara and Persia had one factor in common: their Saint Thomas heritage. The Church of the East shared communion with the Great Church until the Council of Ephesus in the 5th century, separating primarily over differences in Christology.
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.
Angamāly Padiyōla is a historic declaration of the Catholic (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 (Pazhayakoor) or Romo-Syrians or Syrian Catholics of Malabar refers to 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. The Paḻayakūṟ descends from the faction that remained within the Catholic fold and held fast to an East Syriac identity after the historic Coonan Cross Oath of 1653 while being part of the community seceded from the Portuguese Padroado. The modern descendants of the Paḻayakūṟ are the Syro-Malabar Church and the Chaldean Syrian Church. Among these, the former is an Eastern Catholic church in full Communion with the Holy See and the latter is an integral part of the Assyrian Church of the East, one of the traditionalist descendants of the Church of the East.
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