Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church also known as the Indian Orthodox Church or simply as the Malankara Church, is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church headquartered in [|Devalokam], near Kottayam, India. It serves India's Saint Thomas Christian population. According to tradition, these communities originated in the missions of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. It employs the Malankara Rite, an Indian form of the West Syriac liturgical rite.
The MOSC traces its origin to the historic Malankara Church and its association with the Syriac Orthodox Church. Between 1909 and 1912, differences regarding the extent of authority of the Patriarch of Antioch led to a division within the Malankara Church. As a result, two ecclesiastical bodies emerged: the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, both of which claim continuity with the Malankara Christian tradition.
Since 1912, the MOSC has maintained the office of the Catholicos of the East, who also holds the title of Malankara Metropolitan. The current Catholicos and Malankara Metropolitan is Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, who serves as the primate of the church. In 1934, the MOSC adopted a constitution to systematize the function and administration of the church. It defined the conditional authority of the Patriarch of Antioch, and vested the powers of temporal and spiritual administration in the supreme hierarch who possesses the offices of the Catholicate and the Malankara Metropolitanate.
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is in communion with the other Oriental Orthodox Churches. Despite multiple efforts toward reconciliation, disputes between the MOSC and the JSCC, primarily concerning ecclesiastical authority and administrative matters, have continued, including legal proceedings and local conflicts.
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church accepts miaphysitism, which holds that in the one person of Jesus Christ, divinity and humanity are united in one nature without separation, without confusion, without alteration and without mixing where Christ is consubstantial with God the Father. Around 500 bishops within the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem refused to accept the dyophysitism doctrine decreed by the 4th ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon in 451, an incident that resulted in the second major split in the main body of the Christian Church. While the Oriental Orthodox churches rejected the Chalcedonian definition, the sees that would later become the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church accepted this council.
Self-reporting roughly 2.5 million members across 32 dioceses worldwide, a significant proportion of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church's adherents reside in the southern India state of Kerala with the Malankara communities in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South America, Australia and New Zealand.
History
Early history
According to tradition, Christianity first arrived in India with Thomas the Apostle during the 1st century AD, evolving into Saint Thomas Christianity over several centuries. While isolated and generally independent in administration, Indian Christians maintained contact with the Christian hierarchies of Antioch, Persia, and potentially Alexandria. The Saint Thomas Christians had relationships with the Persian Church of the East from at least the 6th century onward. The Indians inherited its East Syriac dialect for liturgical use and gradually became Syriac Christians in ritual and doctrine. They received clerical support from Persian bishops, who traveled to Kerala in merchant ships on the spice route. For much of this period, Saint Thomas Christians were under the leadership of an archdeacon.During the 16th century, efforts by the Portuguese Padroado–an arm of the Catholic Church–to bring the Saint Thomas Christians under the administration of the Latin Church and attempts to Latinize the Malankara Rite led to the first of several rifts in the community. These divisions intensified following the 1599 Synod of Diamper. Saint Thomas Christians who were opposed to the Portuguese Padroado missionaries took the Coonan Cross Oath on 3 January 1653. The Dutch East India Company expulsion of the Portuguese from much of Malabar enabled the reconciliation of some Saint Thomas Christians and the Catholic Church, with this group eventually evolving into the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church that adopted the Chaldean Catholic Church's East Syriac Rite and Diophysite christology.
Malankara Church
Many Saint Thomas Christian chose to remain independent from the Catholic Church. Patriarch Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem, witnessed the 1665 ordination of Thomas as Bishop Thoma I, who forged a renewed relationship with the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and Saint Thomas Christians, which laid the foundation for adopting West Syrian liturgy and practices over the next two centuries. Those who supported the indigenous church leader of Malankara, Thoma I, and adopted West Syrian liturgies and practices and Miaphysite faith evolved into the Malankara Church.19th and 20th centuries
The Arthat Padiyola declared that the administration of Arthat Church was independent and the bishops from Rome, Antioch, and Babylon had no role in the Malankara Church hierarchy, despite continued efforts to integrate the remaining independent Saint Thomas Christians into these patriarchates. In 1807, four gospels of Holy Bible in Syriac were translated to Malayalam by Kayamkulam Philipose Ramban. The Malankara Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kottayam was established in 1815 under the leadership of Pulikottil Ittup Ramban. The Mavelikara Synod led by Cheppad Mar Dionysius rejected the suggestions put forward by Anglican missioneries and Reformation group and declared the beliefs and theology of Malankara Church were same as the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch.Geevarghese Dionysius of Vattasseril, who became the Malankara metropolitan bishop in 1908, played a significant role with the other clerical and lay leaders of Malankara in re-establishing the Catholicate of the East in India in 1912. Relations with the Syrian Orthodox Church soured in 1909, as Patriarch Ignatius Abded Aloho II who arrived in India claimed temporal jurisdiction over the Church. Dionysius rejected the request, leading to the Patriarch issuing an encyclical deposing him, and thus emerged two factions in the Church. The faction that supported the Patriarch came to be called as "Bava Kakshi" and the faction that supported the Malankara Metropolitan came to be known as "Methran Kakshi". The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, wishing to retain its autocephaly, appealed to emeritus Patriarch Ignatius Abdul Masih II who, according to later Syriac Orthodox sources, was deposed by a Synod in 1903. He enthroned Murimattathil Paulose Ivanios as Baselios Paulose I, Catholicos of the East, on the Throne of St. Thomas at St. Mary's Church in Niranam on 15 September 1912.
In 1934, the Malankara Church adopted a constitution to regulate its administration, parishes, and institutions. In 1947, Saint Gregorios of Parumala was declared as a saint by the Church. In 1952, the official residence of the Malankara Metropolitan and the Headquarters of Malankara Church was shifted to Devalokam from Old Seminary. In 1958, The Supreme Court declared Catholicos Baselios Geevarghese II as the legitimate Malankara Metropolitan, and the two factions of the Malankara Orthodox Church rejoined. In 1964, Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch participated in the enthronement ceremony of the Catholicos and Malankara Metropolitan, Baselios Augen I. In 1995, the Supreme Court of India declared the MOSC constitution adopted in 1934 was valid.
21st century
In 2002, fresh elections were conducted in Malankara Association under the observation of Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court declared Catholicos Baselios Marthoma Mathews II is the official and legitimate Malankara Metropolitan and also declared that this decision cannot be disputed in any platform. In 2003, Vattasheril Dionysius VI was declared as a saint. In 2012, the centennial of the establishment of the church and Catholicate were celebrated with history classes and church publications. On 3 July 2017, a major verdict by the Supreme Court of India declared the MOSC legally applicable to all parishes in disputed possession between the MOSC and Jacobite Syrian Christian Church.Hierarchy and doctrine
The spiritual head of the church is the Catholicos of the East, and its temporal head is the Malankara Metropolitan. Since 1934, both titles have been vested in one person; the official title of the head of the church is "The Catholicos of the Apostolic Throne of Saint Thomas and The Malankara Metropolitan". Baselios Marthoma Mathews III was enthroned as the Malankara Metropolitan and the Catholicos of the East. He is the ninth Catholicose of the East in Malankara and the 21st Malankara Metropolitan.Oriental Orthodox Churches, including the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, accept only the first three ecumenical councils: the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople, and the Council of Ephesus. The church, like all other Oriental Orthodox Churches, uses the original Nicene Creed without the filioque clause. Like the Syriac Orthodox Church, it primarily uses the liturgy of Saint James in Malayalam, Konkani, Kannada, Hindi, English and other Indian languages.
Liturgy and canonical hours
The church has used the Malankara Rite, part of the Antiochene Rite, since the 17th century. The Jacobite Church and the Maronite Church also belong to the same liturgical family. In the first half of the fifth century, the Antiochene church adopted the Liturgy of Saint James. In the 4th and 5th centuries, The liturgical language of fourth- and fifth-century Jerusalem and Antioch was Greek, and the original liturgy was composed in Greek.After the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Eastern Church was divided in two; one group accepted the council, and the other opposed it. Both groups continued to use the Greek version of the Saint James liturgy. The Byzantine emperor Justin expelled the opponents from Antioch, and they took refuge in the Syriac-speaking Mesopotamia on the Roman–Persian border. The Antiochene liturgical rites were gradually translated into Syriac, and Syriac hymns were introduced.
Gregorios Abdal Jaleel came to Malankara from Jerusalem in 1665 and introduced Syriac Orthodox liturgical rites. The most striking characteristic of the Antiochene liturgy is its large number of anaphoras. About eighty are known, and about a dozen are used in India. All have been composed following the Liturgy of Saint James.
Christians of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church pray the canonical hours of the Shehimo at fixed prayer times seven times a day.
The liturgy of Mor Addai is still in use, in anaphora form, similar to the Maronite Sharar. The anaphora of St. John Chrysostom is sometimes used.