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INDIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
The Indian Orthodox Church was founded in the state of Kerala, in India, by St. Thomas the Apostle, around 52 AD. It is
one of the ancient Churches of the world.
The Indian Orthodox Church is Eastern in origin and Asian-African in its moorings. It is neither Western, nor Reformed.
It is not Roman Catholic or Protestant.
The Indian Orthodox Church is autonomous, but belongs to the family of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and to the wider
group of the world's Orthodox Churches, which have a membership of about one hundred and twenty five million. In the early
centuries, the St.Thomas Christians, have had contacts and links with sister Churches in Persia, and Syria. Some of the Syrian
traditions have crept into the Indian Orthodox Church, and hence they are also called Syrian Christians.
During the post-Portuguese period, the Indian Orthodox Church came face-to-face with the Roman Catholic Church, and later,
during the British period, with the Protestant Church. These and other vicissitudes resulted in small break-away groups joining
or forming non-Orthodox Christian denominations.
However, the mainstream of the descendants of St.Thomas the Apostle have remained true to the original faith. The Orthodox
Church is based more on worship and a holy life of love and service than on preaching and prostelytizing. These factors are
the basis of all thoughts and actions, and also the reason for its survival through periods of oppression.
The MALANKARA (Indian) ORTHODOX CHURCH
A Historical Perspective by
His Eminence Metropolitan Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios
The Church of St. Thomas
It can only be a gift of Grace that the faith and tradition of a small community of the early Christians in India have
remained alive and vibrant throughout nearly two thousand years. Even amidst periodic storm, from one source or another, across
these centuries of change, the community has maintained an inner calm, in the safety of the spiritual anchor, cast in the
original concept of the word Orthodox, that is the right glorification of God.
The early Christians of India (mainly on the southern coast) were known as Thomas Christians and indeed by no other name
- until the advent of the Portuguese in the 16th century followed closely by the British.
That the Church in India was founded by St. Thomas the apostle is attested by West Asian writings since the 2nd century
(The Doctrine of the Apostle Thomas and the Acta Thomae), both of which were written at or near Edessa ca 200-250 AD - St.
Ephrem, St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregorios Nazianzen, in the 4th century; St. Jerome, ca 400 AD, and historians Eusabius
ca 338 and Theodore, of the 5th century.
Saint Thomas,Apostle of India
Against the background of trade between India and west asia since ancient times, travel close to the coast of Arabia was
feasible and not uncommon, reaching Malabar, the Tamil country, Sindh (Scythia) and western India (Kalyan), around the time
St. Thomas came to India.
There is a wealth of corroborative evidence to support, and no good reason to doubt the living tradition of St. Thomas
Christians that the Apostle arrived in Kodungalloor (Muziris) in Kerala in 52 AD, preached the gospel, established seven churches,
and moved on to other kingdom, returning to Madras (Mylapore) in 72 AD where he was martyred that year. Writers of the 4th
century, St. Ephrem and St. John Chrysostom knew also about the relics of St. Thomas resting at that time in Edessa, having
been brought there from India by West Asian merchants.
The Church founded by St. Thomas must have been rather spread out in the subcontinent, including the North-West, the Western
and Eastern coasts of the peninsula, probably also reaching Sri Lanka. Tradition associates the ministry of St. Thomas with
the Indo-Parthian king, Gondophares in the north and with king Vasudeva (Mazdeo) of the Kushan dynasty in the south. It was
the latter who condemned the apostle to death.
Among the Early Christians
The Orthodox Church in India is one of the 37 Apostolic Churches, dating from the time of the disciples of Christ. Nine
of them were in Europe and 28 in Asia and Africa. Today it belongs to the family of the five Oriental Orthodox Churches, which
include Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia and Armenia, and to the wider stream of the world's Orthodox Churches, comprising in all over
150 million Eastern Christians. It has a strength of over 2 million members in about 1500 parishes mainly in Kerala and increasingly
spread all over India and in many parts of the globe. Eastern in origin and Asian in its moorings, the Indian Church is, at
the same time, a distinctive and respected part of the rich religious mosaic that is India.
Until the 16th century, there was only one Church in India, concentrated mainly in the south west. The seven original
churches were located at Malankara (Malayattor?), Palayur (near Chavakkad), Koovakayal (near North Paravur), Kokkamangalam
(South Pallipuram?), Kollam, Niranam and Nilackel (Chayal). Of the same pattern adopted by the other Apostles, each local
Church was self-administered, guided by a group of presbyters and presided over by the elder priest or bishop.
Saint Gregorios of Parumala
The Indian Church was autonomous then, and is now, like all Orthodox Churches. This is clear from the fact that no name
of any church in India is seen in the now available list of bishoprics of the Church in Persia from the fifth to the seventh
century.
The early Church in India remained one and at peace, treasuring the same ethnic and cultural characteristics as the rest
of the local community. Its members enjoyed the good will of the other religious communities as well as the political support
of the Hindu rulers. The Thomas Christians welcomed missionaries and migrants from other churches, some of whom sought to
escape persecution in their own countries. The language of worship in the early centuries must have been the local language,
probably a form of Tamil. In later centuries, the liturgical language mingled with East Syriac received through the churches
of Selucia and Tigris.
Links with Persia
The Persian connection of the Indian Churches has to be seen in the context of the internal dissension and state persecution
of Christians in Persia from the 5th century. A synod of the Persian Church (410 AD) affirmed the faith of Nicea and acknowledged
the Metropolitan of Selucia-Ctesphion as the Catholicos of the East. Not long after, the christological controversies of Chalcedon,
fuelled by the strains between the Persian and Byzantine empires, swayed the Persian Church to declare itself 'Nestorain'
and its head to assume the title of Patriarch of the East (Babylon). From their base in the then flourishing theological school
of Nisibis, Nestorain missionaries began moving to India, Central Asia, China and Ethiopia to teach their doctrines - probably
associating with the work of St. Thomas the apostle, whom the Persians must have venerated as the founder of their own church.
By the 7th century, specific references of the Indian Church began to appear in Persian records. The Metropolitan of India
and the Metropolitan of China are mentioned in the consecration records of Patriarchs of the east. At one stage, however,
the Indian Church was claimed to be in the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Fars but this issue was settled by Patriarch
Sliba Zoha (714-728 AD) who recognized the traditional dignity of the autonomous Metropolitan of India.
There were other developments in the Persian Church of potential import to the Indian Church. A renaissance of the pre-Chalcedon
faith began, led by Jacob Bardeus, emphasizing the West Syrian Christological tradition of the One United Nature, influencing
the church in Persia as well. Availing the relatively equable political climate following the Arab conquest of Syria and other
parts of West Asia, a Maphrianate of the anti-Chalcedonians was established by Mar Marutha, a native Persian, became the first
Jacobite Maphriana (Catholicos) of the East. The jurisdiction of this Catholicos at Tigris extended to 18 Episcopal dioceses
in lower Mesopotamia and further east, but significantly, not to India.
On the life of the Church in India during the first 15 centuries, the balance of historical evidence and the thrust of
local tradition point to its basic autonomy sustained by the core of its own faith and culture. It received with the trust
and courtesy missionaries, bishops and migrants as they came from whichever eastern Church_Tigris or Babylon, Antioch or Alexandria,
but not from the more distant Constantinople or Rome. There were times in this long period when the Christians in India had
been without a bishop and were led by an Archdeacon. And requests were sent, sometimes with success, to one or another of
the eastern prelates to help restore the episcopate in India. Meanwhile the church in Persia and much of west Asia declined
by internal causes and the impact of Islam, affecting both the Nestorian Patriarchate of the East (Babylon) and the Jacobite
Catholicate of the East (Tigris). As will be seen from the later history of the Indian Church, the ;latter was re-established
in India (Kottayam) in 1912 while the former was transplanted to America in 1940.
The Colonial Era
The post-Portuguese story of the Church in India from the 16th century is relatively well documented. In their combined
zeal to colonize and proselytize, the Portuguese might not have readily grasped the way of life of the Thomas Christians who
seemed to accommodate differing strands of Eastern Christian thought and influence, while preserving the core of their original
faith. The response of the visitors was to try and bring under Romo-Syrian prelates, apart from the new converts in the coastal
areas under Latin prelates.
Pushed beyond a limit, the main body of Thomas Christians rose in revolt and took a collective oath at the Coonen Cross
in Mattancherry in 1653, resolving to preserve the faith and autonomy of their Church and to elect its head. Accordingly,
Archdeacon Thomas was raised to the title of Mar Thoma, the first in the long line up to Mar Thoma IX till 1816.
At the request of the Thomas Christians, the 'Jacobite' bishop, Mar Gregorios of Jerusalem came to India in 1664, confirmed
the episcopal consecration of Mar Thoma I as the head of the Orthodox Church in India. Thus began the formal relationship
with the 'Jacobite' Syrian Church, as it happened, in explicit support of the traditional autonomy of the Indian Church.
Saint Dynasius (MALANKARA SABHA BHASURAN)
History repeated itself in another form when the British in India encouraged 'reformation' within the Orthodox Church
partly through Anglican domination of the theological seminary in Kottayam, besides attracting members of the Church into
Anglican congregations since 1836. Finally the reformist group broke away to form the Mar Thoma Church. This crisis situation
was contained with the help of Patriarch Peter III of Antioch who visited India (1875-77). The outcome was twofold: a reaffirmation
of the distinctive identity of the Orthodox Church under its own Metropolitan and, at some dissonance with this renewal, an
enlarged influence of the Patriarch of Antioch in the affairs of the Indian Church.
Thus a relationship which started for safe-guarding the integrity and independence of the Orthodox Church in India, against
the misguided, if understandable, ambitions of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Protestant Churches opened a long and tortuous
chapter in which concord and conflict between the Indian and Syrian Orthodox Churches have continued to alternate to this
day.
Three landmarks of recent history, however, lend hope that peace and unity might yet return to the Orthodox community,
ripen rather unnaturally by divided loyalty. First, the relocation in India in 1912 of the Catholicate of the East originally
in Selucia and later in Tigris and the consecration of the first Indian Catholicos--Moran Mar Baselios Paulos in Apostolic
succession to St. Thomas, with the personal participation of Patriarch Abdul Messiah of Antioch; second, the coming into force
in 1934 of the constitution of the Orthodox Church in India as an autocephalous Church linked to the Orthodox Syrian Church
of the Patriarch of Antioch, and third, the accord of 1958, by which Patriarch Ignatius Yacoub III affirmed his acceptance
of the Catholicos as well as the constitution.
The fact that the Christian Church first appeared in India, as elsewhere, as a fellowship of self-governing communities,
belonging to the same body and born into the same new life, may yet light the path to a future of peace, within and beyond
the Orthodox community.
As in the other Eastern Churches, the Orthodox faith is founded in a harmonious understanding of the Bible, the Liturgy
and the life and work of the Fathers if the Church.Starting with the Apostles of Christ and their direct disciples like Ignatius
of Antioch, Clement of Rome and Polycarp of Smyrna, the Fathers include other pre-Nicene Fathers if the second and third centuries
like Clement of Alexandria, Irenus of Lyons and Hermas, the author of The Shepherd.The Fathers of the three Ecumenical councils-----the
Synods of Nicea (325), Ephesus (381) and Constantinople (431)---as well as the Fathers who lived and taught during the period
300-450 AD, even if they were not present at these councils, are among the founders of the Orthodox Faith. They include Mar
Athanasius, (ca 296-373) Mar Baselios (ca 330-379) Mar Gregorios Nizanzen (329-389) Mar Gregorios of Nyssa (330-395), Mar
Cyrillos (died 444) and Mar Ivanios (St John Chrysostom, died 407). Of this period 325-451, mention must be made of Alexander
of Alexandria, Mar Didymus the Blind, Mar Theophilos of Alexandria, Mar Eustathius of Antioch, Mar Eusebius of Caesarea, Mar
Kurillos of Jerusalem, and Mar Dioscoros of Alexandria.Many of these names are commemorated in the intercessory prayers (thoob-den)
of the Eucharistic Liturgy, the last of them, remembered in the fifth thoob-den, is Mar Jacob of Edessa (died 708) and Mar
Isaac of Nineveh (died 700).Without attempting an exhaustive list of the Fathers of the Church, the great ascetic tradition
of the monastic fathers like St Antony, St Pachamios, St Makarios, St Simeon Stylites, and St Ephrem must be emphasized as
a bedrock of the Orthodox Faith.The articles of the faith, based on the conclusions of the three great councils of the Early
Church, are contained in the Orthodox Creed, an essential part of the daily prayers of the faithful.
The Ethos of the Church
The witness of the Orthodox Church is a quiet one. It is founded more on a life of worship, of love and of service than
on preaching and proselytizing. This worship-orientation is its basis for all thought and action as well as the reason for
its survival through recurrent terms of trial.
For the Orthodox, tradition is ever alive and is indeed the witness of the Holy Spirit, His unceasing revelation of good
tidings. For the living members of the church, tradition is not so much an outward historical authority as the continual voice
of God, not just the voice of the past but the call of eternity.
There is no better guarantee for the members of the church that they are following the right path than for them to preserve
the organic unity with the saints, the holy men and women of the past generations who are known to have lived in communion
with the Holy Spirit. The principle of apostolic succession upheld by the Orthodox Church has to be grasped in this light,
as a living bond between successive generations of church members, preserving the unity of faith and life, in spite of the
constant flow of time.
It is this concept of unity in which the individual voluntarily merges his or her life in the wider fellowship of the
whole body, that has helped the Orthodox to preserve the truth of the Christian revelation. The identification with the familial
community, rather than discipline through centralized authority, is the life-breath of the church. From this flows communitarian
ethos of the church and the fine balance achieved between democratic functioning and Episcopal maturity. The role of the bishop
is to sanction in the name of the church an action performed by the Holy Spirit, expressed as the unanimous will of all the
members of the church, present and invisible, gathered to celebrate the Eucharist. This principle sustains the democratic
orientation of the Orthodox community, indeed of all Eastern Churches.
The Constitution of the Orthodox Church in India (which has retained the traditional name, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church)
was brought into force on 26 December 1934, with some amendments made later in1951 and 1967.
Article 4 defines membership of the church: “All men and women, who have received Holy Baptism and believe in
the divinity of the Holy Trinity, the incarnation of the Son, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, the Holy
Church, and the application of the Nicene Creed, three-in-all, the divine inspiration of the Holy Traditions, the intercession
of the Mother of God and the Saints, the commemoration of the departed ones, the administration of the seven sacraments and
the canonical observances like fasting, and have accepted the obligation to observe them, will be members of the Church.”
The Structure of Governance
The Constitution defines the institutional structure of the Church for preserving its integrity and autonomy and for administering
its spiritual, ecclesiastical and temporal functions. It upholds the historical tradition that the Patriarchate of Syria and
the Catholicate of the East freely function, each in its own sphere, mutually respecting and not interfering in each other’s
domain. The church is self-governing under the ethical and spiritual guidance of its ecclesiastical head.
The representative basis of self-governance is assured at all the three levels__the parish, the diocese and the church
as a whole. The Parish Assembly of all its members elects the Managing Committee each year from among the lay members. The
vicar, appointed by the Diocesan Metropolitan is the joint-steward, together with the elected lay trustee of the assets of
the parish, and presides over the managing committee and the parish assembly.
Likewise, the diocese is administered through the Diocesan Council representing all the parishes. It is presided over
by the Diocesan Metropolitan and assisted by the Diocesan Secretary.
At the apex, the Church has a representative Association, by the traditional name of Malankara Syrian Christian Association.
It consists of the priest and two lay elected by each Parish Assembly. The Church Managing Committee is drawn from among the
members of the Association. The Catholicose, as the Malankara Metropolitan, presides over the Association and the Managing
Committee. Those prelates having administrative charge of a diocese are vice-presidents of the Association.
The Catholicate in India
“I am the good shepherd:
The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”
This verse (John 10:11), recited at the consecration of the Catholicose, echoes the essence of the Christian calling,
personified by him.
The Catholicose is the supreme head of the Orthodox Church . The present Catholicose is the 89th chronological successor
to the Catholicate of the East founded by St. Thomas the Apostle in Seleucia, later revived in Tigris and relocated in 1912
in Kottayam.
The prime jurisdiction regarding the temporal, ecclesiastical and spiritual administration of the church is vested in
him, in his capacity as the Metropolitan of the Malankara Archdiocese. He is the trustee of the central assets of the Church,
together with two elected co-trustees, a priest and a lay member of the Association.
The Malankara Metropolitan, as all Metropolitans, is elected by the Malankara Association and approved by the Holy Episcopal
Synod.
The Catholicose presides over the Holy Episcopal Synod which is the supreme authority in all matters concerning faith,
order and discipline in the Church.
Fr Idiculla
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