Syrian Catholics of Malabar

Traditionally, Thomas the Apostle is credited for the establishment of Christianity in India. He is believed to have come to Muziris on the Malabar coast, which is in Kerala, in AD 52.[8][9][10][11]

The Jewish community in India are known to have existed in Kerala in the 1st century AD,[12][13] and it was possible for an Aramaic-speaking Jew, such as St. Thomas from Galilee, to make a trip to Kerala then.[14] The earliest known source connecting the Apostle to India is the Acts of Thomas, likely written in the early 3rd century, perhaps in Edessa.[lower-alpha 2] The tradition of origin of the Christians in Kerala is found in a version of the Songs of Thomas or Thomma Parvam,[19][20] in which, Thomas is described as arriving in or around Maliankara and founding Seven Churches, or Ezharapallikal: Kodungallur, Kottakavu , Palayoor, Kokkamangalam, Nilackal, Niranam and Kollam.[21] Some other churches, namely Thiruvithamcode Arappally (a "half church"),[22][23][24] Malayattoor and Aruvithura are often called Arappallikal.[25] The Thomma Parvam further narrates St Thomas's mission in the rest of South India and his martyrdom at Mylapore in present-day Chennai, Tamil Nadu.[15][26]

An organized Christian presence in India dates to the arrival of East Syriac settlers and missionaries from Persia, members of what would become the Church of the East, in around the 3rd century.[18] Saint Thomas Christians trace the further growth of their community to the arrival of Jewish-Christians from the region of Mesopotamia led by Knāi Thoma, which is said to have occurred in 345.[18] However, most experts believe that the arrival of Knai Thoma must have occurred in the ninth century.[27] The subgroup of the Saint Thomas Christians known as the Knanaya or Southists trace their lineage to Thomas of Cana, while the group known as the Northists claim descent from the early Christians evangelized by Thomas the Apostle.[27] Byzantine traveller Cosmas Indicopleustes wrote of Syrian Christians he met in India and Sri Lanka in the 6th century.[28]

Even in Taprobané [Sri Lanka], an island in Further India, where the Indian sea is, there is a Church of Christians, with clergy and a body of believers, but I know not whether there be any Christians in the parts beyond it. In the country. called Malé [Malabar],' where the pepper grows, there is also a church, and at another place called Calliana there is moreover a bishop, who is appointed from Persia.

Until the seventh century, the Saint Thomas Christians were included in the Metropolitanate of Persia. The metropolitan of Rev Ardashir, the head of the province, used to consecrated bishops for the Diocese of India. Patriarch Ishoyahb III (650-660) criticises Shemʿon, metropolitan of Rev Ardashir:

"As far as your province is concerned, from the time you showed recalcitrance against ecclesiastical canons, the episcopal succession has been interrupted in India, and this country has since sat in darkness, far from the light of divine teaching by means of rightful bishops: not only India that extends from the borders of the Persian empire, to the country which is called Kaleh, which is a distance of one thousand and two hundred parasangs, but even your own Persia."[29]

The port at Kollam, then known as Quilon, was founded in 825 by Maruvān Sapir Iso, a Persian Christian merchant, with sanction from Ayyanadikal Thiruvadikal, the king of the independent Venad or the State of Quilon, a feudatory under Sthanu Ravi Varma Perumal of the Chera kingdom.[27] Sapir Iso was the East Syriac Christian merchant who led the East Syriac bishops Mar Sabor and Mar Proth to the Christians of Malabar. The two bishops were instrumental in founding many Christian churches with Syrian liturgy along the Malabar coast and were venerated as Qandishangal (saints) since then by the Thomas Christians.[27] It was during this period that Christians disappeared from the Coromandel Coast.[27]

Bishop Palliveettil Chandy tried to consecrate Thoma II, the leader of the Puthenkoor, as his successor, in an attempt to reunify both the Puthenkoor and the Pazhayakoor under a common Catholic hierarchy. However, this attempt was spoiled by the missionaries. Meanwhile, the missionaries assured Chandy that his successor will be a native. Hence, Chandy held his archdeacon as his rightful successor. But after Chandy's death, the missionaries appointed a half-Indian Portuguese, Raphael Figueredo (c. d. 1695) as the Vicar Apostolic of Malabar for Saint Thomas Christians.[32] This appointment shook the confidence they had in the propaganda Carmelites and quarrels started to escalate. Many churches protested against the move and some even joined Thoma II.[33] Soon, Bishop Raphael Figueredo also lost the favour of the Carmelites and he was replaced with Custodius de Pinho (c. d. 1697) as the Vicar Apostolic of Malabar. Chandy died in 1687 and with him the initial attempts for reunification of both factions also died out.[33]

During this time, Metropolitan Shemʿon of ʿAda (d. c. 1720)[34] arrived in India. He was originally sent by Patriarch Eliah IX Yohannan Augen of the 'Eliah' Patriarchate of the Church of the East and was previously his representative in Rome to discuss Church union.[35] He travelled to India in a Portuguese ship and reached Goa. However he was arrested and deported. Later he approached the 'Josephite' Patriarchate and made a Catholic profession of faith. He was consequently appointed as Metropolitan by Patriarch Joseph II for the faithful in India.[36] He travelled to India once again and reached Surat.[35] There, he was detained in a Capuchin monastery. He informed that he was a Catholic bishop sent from the Chaldean Patriarch.[35] Moreover, during the same time the Rome wanted to curtail the Padroado authority in India, through the propaganda administration.[35] Rome had appointed Angelo Francisco Vigliotti, a Carmelite missionary, to be the future bishop of Verapoly. This plan would enable Rome to surpass the Padroado administration in India. Fearing about these plans and reluctant to share authority, the Padroado declined the request to consecrate the newly appointed bishop-elect.[35] Therefore, the missionaries accepted Shemʿon's Catholic faith just in order to make him consecrate the Carmelite bishop. On 22 May 1701, Shemʿon was escorted to Alangad, where he was made to consecrate Angelo Francisco at midnight.[37][38][35] The Carmelites took every precaution so that he could not meet anyone from the Saint Thomas Christians. He was then secretly deported to Pondicherry.[35] There he lived in home custody until his death on 16 August 1720.[39][35] Although all these happened in utmost secrecy, a letter that he sent from the Capuchin monastery of Surat to the Saint Thomas Christians, was preserved and his memory was cherished by them. Shemʿon's dead body was found in a well near where he was detained in Pondicherry and thus the Saint Thomas Christians believed that he was murdered by the missionaries.[40] His tragedy inspired them and he was hailed as a martyr for the efforts to maintain the Church of the East's jurisdiction and East Syriac Rite among them.[40]

St. Mary's Syro-Malabar Church, Alangad

An excerpt from the letter of Metropolitan Shemʿon addressed to the Saint Thomas Christians in MS Mannanam Mal 14, 46r-45v folios:

After praying that you be in spiritual peace and enquiring about your condition I let it know to your graceful love that I came from Mar Eliah, Patriarch of the East; let his glorious see be fortified! Amen. First I went to Jerusalem and from there I went to the great Rome and to Spain and to the land of Portugal; from there I came to the land of India, to the city of Anjuna and asked about you and he [whom I asked] told me: “Those people are not here, the people whom you seek, but go to the city of Surat, there you will find them.” I went to Surat and did not see anybody from among you, but I saw a Jew and a book [letter] of yours was with him. I took it from him, kissed it and read, rejoiced very much and asked him: “Where would be these Christians?” - and he told me: “In the land of Kochi.”.....

By 1705, another East Syrian bishop was working in Southern Malabar, sent by the Catholicos of the East, Patriarch Eliah X Augen.[41][42][43] His mission was roughly coterminous with that of Shemʿon of ʿAda, however much more fruitful.[44] He was Gabriel of Ardishai, the Metropolitan of Azerbaijan.[41][45] Unlike Metropolitan Shem˓on, Gabriel neither explicitly claim to be Chaldean Catholic bishop nor was he interested in a friendship with the Latin missionaries.[46] However, he implicitly presented himself as a Catholic bishop sent from the Chaldean Patriarchate.[47] Previously he was in Rome and he had interactions with the Propaganda in an aim to get approval as the bishop for Saint Thomas Christians.[47] In 1704, he wrote profession faith to be examined. However it was rejected by the Propaganda as they found it unsound to Catholic doctrine. He was asked to make necessary corrections, which he did not and without getting Rome's approval, he made his journey to Malabar.[47]

However, in one of his two letters preserved in the Saint Joseph's Monastery at Mannanam, dated 1708, he makes a perfect Catholic confession of "the Lady Mary the Mother of God and Ever virgin Mary" and sent it to Angelo Francisco.[47] Gabriel then declares that he is the “Metropolitan of all India of the Syrians”. The second letter is written in 1712 and is entitled "Letter of Gabriel Metropolitan of all India". In it, Gabriel answers an inquiry from the Paḻayakūṟ faithful concerning his faith: “If you ask me about my faith, my faith is like the faith of the holy Lord Pope”.[47]

Changanassery church

Meanwhile, Giuseppe Sagribanti, Prefect of the Propaganda and writing in the name of Pope Innocent XIII, rejects his claims by saying that Gabriel has no authority from the Pope.[47] In 1712, the Propaganda sent him another letter, ordering him to retreat from Malabar to his flock in Azerbaijan.[47] Meanwhile, Gabriel ignored the letters of the Propaganda and instead of making a new confession of faith to be sent to Rome, he made the aforementioned confession of faith in a letter addressed to Angelo Francisco in order to make peace with him and with the Carmelites residing in Malabar.[48] Gabriel was then residing near the church in Changanassery. In the letter, it is also declared among others things that Gabriel was celebrating the Eucharist with unleavened bread.[49] However, it is clear that he used both leavened and unleavened bread opportunistically.[49] Meanwhile, Angelo Francisco received the letter of Giuseppe Sagribanti that alerted the Carmelites.[49] They were successful in persuading the natives and thereby ousting Gabriel from the Changanassery. Gabriel then found residence in Kottayam Minor church. This church was then used by both factions of Saint Thomas Christians.[50] Individuals and families belonging to both factions had close relationships and the allegiance to the faction to which one belonged often owed more to local reasons than to faith. Opposition and rivalries was more personal than theological.[50]

Kottayam Minor Church

During this period, the leader of the Puthenkur was Thoma IV (c. d. 1728).[50] Gabriel opposed him and was successful in winning back a number of churches and faithful from his faction.[50] Many churches from the Paḻayakūṟ also joined him. He claimed to have secured about 44 churches in his leadership.[51] Thoma IV was by this time a supporter of Miaphysitism, brought by the Syriac Orthodox prelates, and he regarded Gabriel as a Nestorian heretic.[50] In 1709, he wrote a letter to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, pleading that bishops be sent to aid him in countering Gabriel's arguments.[50]

Gabriel strongly opposed the Portuguese but sought the support of the Dutch. His letter to Jacobus Canter Visscher, a Dutch chaplain at Kochi,[50] gives an apologetic detail of the history of Christianity in India and expresses staunch opposition to the Portuguese missionaries. Following is an excerpt from the letter, entitled "The antiquity of the Syrian Christians, and Historical events relating to them", addressed to Visscher:

And in the days of this persecution, the upright, God-fearing, justice-loving, and peaceable Dutch were sent to Malabar by the inspiration of Almighty God and by order of the East India Company, under the command of the noble Lord Admiral Ryklop van Goens, and like as the heathen were driven out of the land of Isso Biranon Kinan [Canaan] so have they driven the worse than heathen Portuguese out of Cochin and other cities and fortresses of Malabar; and through Divine Providence the Syrian christians have been from that time forward protected and defended from them, and their pastors have again visited this coun try without let or hindrance.[52]

Gabriel received certain amount of support and favour from the Dutch and he remained in India until his death in 1731.[50] Visscher gives the following account of Metropolitan Gabriel:

Mar Gabriel, a white man, and sent hither from Bagdad, is aged and venerable in appearance, and dresses nearly in the same fashion as the Jewish priests of old, wearing a cap fashioned like a turban, and a long white beard. He is courteous and God-fearing, and not at all addicted to extravagant pomp. Round his neck he wears a golden crucifix. He lives with the utmost sobriety, abstaining from all animal food ... He holds the Nestorian doctrine respecting the union of the two natures in our Saviour's person.[50]