Fenwick, John - Forgotten Bishops; The Malabar Independent Syrian Church and Its Place in the Story...

The Forgotten Bishops

Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies

20

Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies brings to the scholarly world theunderrepresented field of Christianity as it developed in the Easternhemisphere. This series consists of monographs, collections ofessays, texts and translations of the documents of EasternChristianity, and studies of topics relevant to the unique world ofhistoric Orthodoxy and early Christianity.

The Forgotten Bishops

The Malabar Independent Syrian Church and itsPlace in the Story of the St Thomas Christians of

South India

John Fenwick

9342009

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA

www.gorgiaspress.com

Copyright by Gorgias Press LLC2009

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American CopyrightConventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without theprior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC.

Printed in the United States of America

2009 9ISBN 978-1-60724-619-0 ISSN 1539-1507

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataFenwick, John R. K.., 1951- The forgotten bishops : the Malabar Independent Syrian Church and its place in the story of the St. Thomas Christians of South India / By John Fenwick. p. cm. -- (Gorgias eastern Christian studies ; 20) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Malabar Independent Syrian Church--History. 2. India--Church history. 3. Saint Thomas Christians--History. I. Title. BX163.3.F46 2009 281'.5--dc22 2009038631

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents...................................................................................vii List of Illustrations ................................................................................xiii Illustrations .............................................................................................xxi Sources ....................................................................................................xxi Abbreviations ................................................................................... xxxvii Note on Terminology, Episcopal Nomenclature, Spelling and

dates ............................................................................................xxxix Ecclesiastical..............................................................................xxxix Indian Usage....................................................................................xl Personal Names .............................................................................xli Spelling and transliteration..........................................................xlii Dates..............................................................................................xliii

Acknowledgements ...............................................................................xlv Map of Travancore, Cochin and British Malabar circa 1800 ........xlix Introduction ..............................................................................................1 Chapter 1: The Indian Context ............................................................11

The Geographical Context...........................................................12 Ethnography...................................................................................14 Political Organisation....................................................................17

Chapter 2: Syrian Christianity ...............................................................23 Syriac................................................................................................24 The Common Heritage.................................................................25 The East Syrian community the Church of the East ...........28 The West Syrian Community the Syrian Orthodox

Church....................................................................................40 Through Indian eyes?....................................................................53

Chapter 3: Syrian Christianity in India to 1498................................59 The St Thomas Tradition.............................................................62 Later Developments......................................................................66

viii THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

The Stone Crosses.........................................................................69 Other Factors .................................................................................70 The Archdeacon ............................................................................72 The Lower Clergy..........................................................................75 The Status of the Community .....................................................77

Chapter 4: The Consequences of European Contact An Overview.........................................................................................83 The Portuguese and The Synod of Udyamperoor/Diamper .83 The Dutch ....................................................................................103 The British and Tippu Sultan ....................................................108

Chapter 5: The Struggle For Independence and Identity 1653-1751 ...............................................................................................119 Francis Garcia, Archbishop of Cranganore, 1641-1659........120 Coonen Cross and the establishment of contact with the

West Syrian tradition..........................................................121 Efforts to Restore Union with Rome.......................................127 Mar Gregorios Abdul Jaleel .......................................................133 The Kattumangattu Brothers.....................................................143 Maphrian Mar Basilios Yaldo and Mar Ivanios

Hidayathulla.........................................................................145 The transformation of the Archidiaconate..............................147 Mar Thoma IV ca 1688-1728 ....................................................149 The Struggle for Control of the Syrians: Mar Thoma IV,

Mar Gabriel, Padroado and Propaganda ........................153 Mar Thoma V 1728-1765...........................................................157 Mar Ivanios Yuhanon Ibn al Arqugianyi of Amid.................160

Chapter 6: The Consequences of the Maphrians Delegation of 1751: I - The Quarrel With Mar Thoma V..............................169 Mar Basilios Shukr Allah Qasagbi, Maphrian of the East.....169 Mar Gregorios Yuhanna, Metropolitan of Jerusalem............171 The arrival of the delegation......................................................172 First contact with the Kattumangattu brothers? ....................177 The absence of the Vicar Apostolic .........................................179 The concordat with Mar Thoma V ..........................................180 Anquetil du Perrons Meeting with Maphrian Mar Basilios,

January 1758 ........................................................................181 The Maphrians legacy community and liturgy.....................184 The breakdown of the concordat with Mar Thoma V..........188

TABLE OF CONTENTS ix

Chapter 7: The Consequences of the Maphrians Delegation of 1751: II - The Consecration of Two Bishops.........................193 The Consecration of Mar Thoma VI as Dionysios I.............194 The Date of the Consecration of Mar Koorilose I ................200 Why was another Indian consecrated?.....................................221 What happened in 1772? ............................................................224 Summary .......................................................................................241 The end of the Maphrians delegation .....................................245 Postscript: Why Koorilose? .....................................................246

Chapter 8: Mar Koorilose I And Mar Dionysios I: Further Themes..........................................................................................247 Mar Dionysios Is attempts to unite with Rome ....................247 The Mission of Joseph Kariattil ................................................250 Opposition to Mar Dionysios reception.................................252 Mar Abraham Pandari and the reception of Mar Dionysios

I .............................................................................................256 Additional Topics ........................................................................264

Chapter 9: The Early 19th Century Two Lines of Succession....285 A Brief Review of Sources .........................................................285 The Kattumangattu Succession Geeverghese Mar

Koorilose II and Mar Ivanios...........................................288 The Pakalomattom Succession Mar Dionysios I and

Contact With British Churchmen....................................295 Mar Thoma VII 1808-1809........................................................310 Mar Thoma VIII 1809-1816......................................................313 John Munro, British Resident, 1810-1819...............................315 Mar Thoma IX 1816 ...................................................................323 The Thozhiyur Succession .........................................................324 Plans for Renewal and Reunion? ...........................................327 The Founding of the Seminary and the Consecration of

Mar Dionysios II ................................................................331 North-South tensions .................................................................335 The Mission of Help ...................................................................338 Indigenous Evangelism ..............................................................343

Chapter 10: The Golden Age: Geeverghese Mar Philoxenos II, Malankara Metropolitan .............................................................347 Consecration and Ministry .........................................................347 Mar Athanasios Abdul Messih ..................................................361 The Liturgical Shift......................................................................370

x THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Mar Philoxenos II death and tributes ...................................373 Chapter 11: Mar Koorilose III and the Termination of the

Mission of Help ...........................................................................377 The consecration of Mar Koorilose III ...................................377 Bishop Wilsons Visits ................................................................382 Fading Hopes for Reform..........................................................386 Attitudes to Roman Catholicism...............................................389 The Mavelikara Synod, 1836......................................................397 Palakunnathu Abraham Malpan................................................402 The Petition to the British Resident, 1836 ..............................406

Chapter 12: Mathews Mar Athanasios ..............................................413 Early Life and troubles with the CMS Missionaries ..............414 The Journey to the Patriarch .....................................................419 Encounter with Patriarch Elias II.............................................424 The return to India......................................................................436 Mar Athanasios and Mar Dionysios IV early contacts.......439 The Kandanat Assembly of 30th August 1843........................442 The Callumcatta Assembly of 3rd September 1843 ................444 The Attitude of the Missionaries ..............................................445 The Response from the Patriarchate........................................446 A West Syrian agenda?................................................................453 Malankara Metropolitan .............................................................459

Chapter 13: Independence Secured ...................................................461 The Consecration of Mar Koorilose IV ..................................463 The Thozhiyur community acquires new Churches ..............471 The Later Career of Yoakim Mar Koorilose...........................473 The Death of Mar Dionysios IV...............................................476 A wider perspective the Pazhayakuttukar ............................477 Internal life ...................................................................................486

Chapter 14: The End of the Old Order and the Consecration of Titus I Mar Thoma......................................................................527 Joseph Mar Dionysios V ............................................................527 The Consecration of Thomas Mar Athanasios.......................529 The Visit of Patriarch Peter III .................................................530 The Abandoning of Mathews Mar Athanasios.......................533 The Mulanthuruthy Synod 1876 ...............................................535 The Death of Metropolitan Mathews Mar Athanasios .........538 Thomas Mar Athanasios, Malankara Metropolitan................541

TABLE OF CONTENTS xi

Events at Thozhiyur the consecration of Mar Athanasios I .............................................................................................545

The consecration of Titus Mar Thoma....................................548 Internal Life..................................................................................553

Chapter 15: The Twentieth Century: Expansion, Obscurity and New Initiatives .............................................................................555 Geeverghese Mar Koorilose V, 8th Metropolitan, 1898-

1935, and Paulose Mar Athanasios, Suffragan Metropolitan 1917-1927 ....................................................558

Kuriakose Mar Koorilose VI, 9th Metropolitan, 1936-1947 .565 Geeverghese Mar Koorilose VII, 10th Metropolitan, 1948-

1967 ......................................................................................567 Paulose Mar Philoxenos III, 11th Metropolitan, 1967-1977 .569 Mathews Mar Koorilose VIII, 12th Metropolitan, 1978-

1986 ......................................................................................574 Joseph Mar Koorilose IX, 13th Metropolitan 1986-2001,

and Cyril Mar Basilios, 2001 -...........................................575 Chapter 16: The Significance Of The Malabar Independent

Syrian Church...............................................................................583 An Integral Place in the St Thomas Christian Story ..............583 Wider Implications ......................................................................587 A Future Role? .............................................................................588

Bibliography ..........................................................................................591 Index.......................................................................................................621

xiii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(Every attempt has been made to identify the source of the illustrations and to track down possible owners of copyright. Any errors or omissions will gladly be corrected in subsequent editions.) Cover picture. A 19th century Metropolitan and attendants. The illustration conveys something of the position of Syrian bishops in Kerala (Source: the collection of Joseph Mar Barnabas, Adoor).

Figure 1. Syrian Christian man and woman. The water colour dates from the 1820s, but the dress seems to have been essentially the same for many centuries. The small scapular around the womans neck shows that she is of the Pazhayakuttukar those St Thomas Christians in communion with Rome. The white cloth is pleated into a fan at the rear, which is still seen in very old Syrian women today. The form of the pleating varied between those Syrians in communion with Rome and those who were not. (Source: British Library MSS EUR D 152. By permission.)

Figure 2. Syrian priests or kathanars. The one on the right is wear-ing the kamiss over loose pyjamas, as described in the 16th century sources and still worn today. The round cap of West Asian origin has not yet replaced the head cloth. The priest on the left is in a white cassock which may derive from European influence. His beard shows that he is not of the Romo-Syrians, though he has a Roman tonsure. (Source: British Library MSS EUR D 152. By permission.)

Figure 3. Bishop Alexander de Campo and his nephews. All are clean shaven. The bishop is in stole, cope and mitre. His nephews are tonsured and in black, with the exception of the Archdeacon who is in full length rochet and mozetta. He holds the bishops

xiv THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

staff, the head of which seems to be two snakes facing a cross a design still common in Kerala. (Source: original 17th century oil painting in the presbytery at Kuruvilangad. I am grateful to Fr Jacob Thekkeparambil for arranging for me to photograph the original.)

Figure 4. Syro-Malabar bishop, priest and laity. This group, from the middle of the 20th century, shows the totally westernised ap-pearance of the Syrian clergy who remained in communion with Rome after the middle of the 17th century. The bishop, in particu-lar, is dressed identically to his Latin-rite European counterparts, complete with biretta. Eucharistic vestments were also totally Latin-rite. The contrast between this and the much more Ortho-dox appearance of the non-Roman Syrians needs to be borne in mind when considering the relationship between the two sections of the community. (Source: Donald Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, facing p. 201.)

Figure 5. 18th century wall painting of a bishop at Angamale Church. The mitre, pectoral cross, blessing cross and beard have been added to the rochet and mozetta. (Source: G. Menachery (ed.), The Nazaranies, (Indian Church History Classics vol. 1), Thris-sur, SARAS, 1998, back cover. The figure is named as Archdeacon Gevarghese, but seems more likely to be a bishop.) Figure 6. Syrian Metropolitan in the 1820s. This may be an artists impression, based on descriptions, rather than taken from life. The rochet is almost certainly incorrectly depicted as open. (Source: British Library MSS EUR D 152. By permission.) Figure 7. Detail from the susthaticon recording the consecration of Mar Thoma VI as Mar Dionysios I. It is attested by Gregorios, Metropolitan of Jerusalem, and Ivanios, bishop of India, and bears the date 19th Haziran 2081 of the Greeks (= 1770 AD). (Source: CMS archives Birmingham (CMS/ACC 91 02/04) by permission.)

Figure 8. The modern Chapel of Mar Behnam at Thevanal on the site of the original monastery founded in 1767. (Source: authors collection.)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv

Figure 9. St Georges Cathedral, Thozhiyur, prior to renovation in 1989. This presumably the original Church built by Mar Koorilose I. His tomb and those of Mar Philoxenos I, Mar Philoxenos II and Mar Koorilose III are in the madbaha, which was unaffected by the renovation. Subsequent bishops have been buried seated and robed in a special vault in the qestroma. On the death of a bishop his pred-cessors bones are removed and placed in a pit under the south wall of the nave. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.) Figure 10. The Cheriapally (Little Church) at Kottayam, showing the characteristic design: the sanctuary or madbaha, is higher than the nave; the west gable is ornamented; and there is a long west porch. Compare with St Georges Cathedral, Thozhiyur. (Source: Richards, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, p.3.)

Figure 11. Signature of Mar Philoxenos II. This dates from 1829 and is in East Syriac script. Figure 12. The Revd Richard Kerr, whose visit to Kerala preceded that of Claudius Buchanan, but whose account of the St Thomas Christians was eclipsed by Buchanans. (Source: Frank Penny, The Church in Madras, vol. 2, p.304.) Figure 13. The Revd Claudius Buchanan, whose book Christian Re-searches in Asia, published in 1811, did much to bring the existence of the Syrians in Kerala to the attention of the British public. (Source: Frank Penny, The Church in Madras, vol. 2, p.304.) Figure 14. Colonel Colin Macaulay, first British Resident in Tra-vancore and Cochin. (Source: W. S. Hunt, The Anglican Church in Travancore and Cochin, vol. 1.) Figure 15. Colonel John Munro, second British Resident in Tra-vancore and Cochin. His impact on the Syrian community was immense. (Source: W. S. Hunt, The Anglican Church in Travancore and Cochin, vol. 1.)

Figure 16. Mathews Mar Athanasios (Palakunnathu), Malankara Metropolitan 1852-1877. (Source: CMS Archives, Oxford (H/H31/AG1/1, p.46) by permission of the Archivist.)

xvi THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Figure 17. Geevarghese Mar Koorilose III (Koothoor), MISC Met-ropolitan 1829-1856. He was the successor of Mar Philoxenos II, and was consecrated by Cheppat Mar Dionysios IV. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.) Figure 18. Joseph Mar Koorilose IV (Alathoor-Panakkal), MISC Metropolitan 1856-1888. He was a very active Metropolitan, who began the expansion of the MISC beyond Anjur and Thozhiyur, and who built the cloister adjoining the Cathedral. (Source: Thoz-hiyur Archives.) Figure 19. The signature of Metropolitan Mathews Mar Athanasios on the 1856 susthaticon of Mar Koorilose IV. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.) Figure 20. Pulikottil Mar Dionysios V. Consecrated in 1864 by Pa-triarch Yacoub II, contrary to the wishes of the Patriarchal delegate in Kerala. Eventually, in 1889, won legal recognition as Malankara Metropolitan on the grounds that the Patriarch of Antioch was judged to have spiritual authority over the Indian Church and only a bishop consecrated by him or his delegate could be Malankara Metropolitan. (Source: Richards, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, p.40.) Figure 21. Thomas Mar Athanasios (Palakunnathu), Malankara Me-tropolitan 1877-1893. Consecrated by Mathews Mar Athananasios and Mar Koorilose IV, he in turn was involved in the consecrations of Joseph Mar Athanasios and Geevarghese Mar Koorilose V. (Source: Richards, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, frontispiece.) Figure 22. Joseph Mar Athanasios I (Maliyekkal), consecrated 1883, MISC Metropolitan 1888-1898. He presided at the consecration of Titus I Mar Thoma in the Cheriapally, Kottayam, in 1894. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.)

Figure 23. Geevarghese Mar Koorilose V (Pulikottil-Karumamkuzhi), consecrated 1892, MISC Metropolitan 1898-1935. Assisted at the consecration of Titus I Mar Thoma. (Source: Thoz-hiyur Archives.)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii

Figure 24. Punnathra Chandapilla kathanar (Thazhath Achen). He was the priest of the Cheriapally in Kottayam and was one of the priests instrumental in bringing the bishops from Thozhiyur for the consecration of Titus I Mar Thoma in 1894. In later years he was one of the priests who argued that the reform had gone far enough, and that no further changes were necessary. Note that he wears the kamiss and tonsure. (Source: Mar Thoma Seminary Ar-chives.)

Figure 25. Titus I Mar Thoma (Palakunnathu), Metropolitan of the Reformed Syrians 1894-1909. (Source: Collection of Joseph Mar Barnabas, Adoor.) Figure 26. Thomas Mar Athanasios and his clergy. The priests are wearing white cassocks with black belts and black caps. (Source: Richards, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, p.47.) Figure 27. Mar Dionysios V and clergy. The clergy are in black cas-socks, but the Latin tonsure is still being worn. The bishop on the left is Mar Abdisho Thondanat (see Chapter 13); the bishop on the right is Mar Julius Alvares from whom several lines of episcopi vagan-tes derive. (Source: Richards, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, p.63.) Figure 28. Aviotte Yonan kassisa (1850-1916). One of the leaders of the reform movement, who was particularly instrumental in securing a number of southern Churches for the Mar Thoma Church. Note that, despite being a Reformer he wears a black cas-sock and Roman tonsure as late as the early 20th century. (Source: Poolatheen collection. By permission of Metropolitan Philipose Mar Chrysostom.) Figure 29. Paulose Mar Athanasios (Alathoor-Panakkal), Suffragan Metropolitan of MISC 1917-1927. He died before succeeding as Metropolitan. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.) Figure 30. Paulose Mar Athanasios, Titus II Mar Thoma, Geevarghese Mar Koorilose V, and Abraham Mar Thoma. The photograph was almost certainly taken in 1917 following the con-secration of Abraham Mar Thoma (the photographer who copied

xviii THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

the original has removed the background). (Source: Thozhiyur Ar-chives.) Figure 31. Kuriakose Mar Koorilose VI (Koothoor), MISC Metro-politan 1935-1947. Consecrated by Titus II Mar Thoma. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.) Figure 32. Juhanon Mar Thoma, Metropolitan 1947-1976. Consec-rator of Mar Koorilose VII and Mar Philoxenos III. (Source: K.K. Kuruvilla, A History of the Mar Thoma Church and its Doctrines, facing p.45.) Figure 33. Geeverghese Mar Koorilose VII (Cheeran), MISC Met-ropolitan 1947-1967. Consecrated by Juhanon Mar Thoma. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.)

Figure 34. Paulose Mar Philoxenos III (Ayyamkulangara), MISC Metropolitan 1967-1977. Consecrated by Juhanon Mar Thoma. Left the MISC to join the Syro-Malankara Church, where he was made titular Bishop of Chayal. The photograph was taken on the day of his consecration. (Source: Mar Thoma Seminary Archives.) Figure 35. The MISC clergy with the body of Mar Koorilose VII in 1967. Assembling for a group photograph with the vested corpse of a deceased bishop is still normal practice in many of the Syrian Churches. Second from the left is Fr Paul A. Thomas, who was to succeed as Mar Philoxenos III. Third from the left is Fr K.C. Verghese, author of the Brief Sketch, the only history of the MISC in English before 1992. The Deacon on the right is wearing a dal-matic, almost certainly a tradition continued since Portuguese times. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.) Figure 36. Alexander Mar Thoma, Metropolitan 1976-1999. Con-secrator of Mathews Mar Koorilose VIII and Joseph Mar Kooril-ose IX. (Source: collection of the Revd Dr George Mathew.) Figure 37. Geeverghese Mar Koorilose VIII (Koothoor), MISC Metropolitan 1977-1986. (Source: Thozhiyur Archives.)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix

Figure 38. Joseph Mar Koorilose IX (Alathoor-Panakkal), MISC Metropolitan 1986-2001, Valiya Metropolitan from 2001. Conse-crated by Alexander Mar Thoma, assisted by Mar Thoma bishops and by Mar Aprem Mooken and Paulose Mar Paulose of the Church of the East. He is the first MISC Metropolitan to travel outside India. (Source: authors collection) Figure 39. Cyril Mar Basilios (Koothoor), MISC Metropolitan from 2001. Consecrated by Mar Koorilose IX assisted by Mar Thoma, Malankara Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Church of South India bishops. (Source: authors collection.)

xxi

ILLUSTRATIONS (For more information on each illustration, see pp xiii xix)

1. Syrian Christian man and woman.

2. Syrian priests or kathanars.

xxii THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Figure 3. Mar Alexander de Campo and his nephews.

Figure 4. Syro-Malabar bishop,

priest and laity. Figure 5. 18th century wall painting of a bishop at Angamale Church.

ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii

Figure 7. Detail from copy of the susthaticon recording the consecration

of Mar Thoma VI as Mar Dionysios I in 1770.

Figure 6. Syrian Metropolitan in the 1820s.

xxiv THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Figure 8. The modern Chapel of Mar Behnam at Thevanal on the site of

the original monastery founded in 1767.

Figure 9. St Georges Cathedral, Thozhiyur, prior to renovation in 1989.

ILLUSTRATIONS xxv

Figure 10. The Cheriapally (Little Church) at Kottayam.

Figure 11. Signature of Mar Philoxenos II in 1829.

xxvi THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Figure 12. The Revd Richard Kerr. Figure 13. The Revd Claudius

Buchanan.

Figure 14. Colonel Colin

Macaulay. Figure 15. Colonel John Munro.

ILLUSTRATIONS xxvii

Figure 16. Mathews Mar Athanasios (Palakunnathu),

Malankara Metropolitan 1852-1877.

xxviii THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Figure 17. Geevarghese Mar Koorilose III (Koothoor),

MISC Metropolitan 1829-1856.

Figure 18. Joseph Mar Koorilose IV (Alathoor-Panakkal),


Figure 19. The signature of Metropolitan Mathews Mar Athanasios on

the 1856 susthaticon of Mar Koorilose IV.

ILLUSTRATIONS xxix

Figure 20. Pulikottil Mar

Dionysios V. Figure 21. Thomas Mar Athanasios

(Palakunnathu), Malankara Metropolitan 1877-1893.

Figure 22. Joseph Mar Athanasios I

(Maliyekkal) MISC Metropolitan 1888-1898.

Figure 23. Geevarghese Mar Koorilose V (Pulikottil-

Karumamkuzhi) MISC Metropolitan 1898-1935.

xxx THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Figure 24. Punnathra Chandapilla

kathanar (Thazhath Achen). Figure 25. Titus I Mar Thoma (Pa-lakunnathu) Metropolitan1894-1909.

Figure 26. Thomas Mar Athanasios and his clergy

ILLUSTRATIONS xxxi

Figure 27. Mar Dionysios V and clergy.

Figure 28. Aviotte Yonan kassisa

(1850-1916). Figure 29. Paulose Mar Athanasios

(Alathoor-Panakkal), Suffragan Metropolitan of MISC 1917-1927.

xxxii THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Figure 30. Paulose Mar Athanasios, Titus II Mar Thoma, Geevarghese

Mar Koorilose V, and Abraham Mar Thoma (ca. 1917).

Figure 31. Kuriakose Mar Koorilose VI (Koothoor)


Figure 32. Juhanon Mar Thoma, Metropolitan 1947-1976.

ILLUSTRATIONS xxxiii

Figure 33. Geeverghese Mar

Koorilose VII (Cheeran) MISC Metropolitan 1948-1967.

Figure 34. Paulose Mar Philoxenos III (Ayyamkulangara)


Figure 35. The MISC clergy with the body of Mar Koorilose VII in

1967.

xxxiv THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Figure 36. Alexander Mar Thoma,

Metropolitan 1976-1999. Figure 37. Geeverghese Mar Koorilose VIII (Koothoor)


Figure 38. Joseph Mar Koorilose

IX (Alathoor-Panakkal) MISC Metropolitan 1986-2001.

Figure 39. Cyril Mar Basilios (Koothoor), MISC Metropolitan

from 2001.

xxxv

SOURCES

CMS Church Missionary Society archives. The bulk of these are housed at the University of Birmingham (UK), with some at current CMS headquarters in Oxford. The Birmingham deposit in particular contains a substantial amount of letters and other material deriving from the CMS mission in Kerala which began in 1816.

DR Dutch Records. The records of the Dutch East

India Company in Travancore and Cochin were stored at Madras. In the early 20th century the ma-jority of them were bound and catalogued by A.J. Heylingers in Press List of Ancient Dutch Records (IOR/V/27/36/27), covering the period 1657 to 1825. This does not list every document, but de-scribes the general type of manuscript in each vol-ume, with more detailed notes on some that Hey-lingers found particularly interesting. Examination of each volume is therefore necessary. Some of the volumes are in a fragile state. Not all are pagi-nated. The collection is now housed at Tamil Nadu Archives, Ghandi-Irwin Road, Egmore, Chennai.

IOR India Office Records. Various materials (corre-

spondence, reports, etc) held at the British Li-brary, Euston Road, London,

LP Lambeth Palace Archives, London. MTS Mar Thoma Seminary Archives, Kottayam. The

Seminary has a separate archive building which contains various photographs, manuscripts and printed books in bookcases and display cases.

xxxvi THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Most of the items seem to have been donated by families in whose keeping they had been. There is a rudimentary catalogue. The collection is less ex-tensive than might be expected and is suffering considerably from the effects of deterioration.

TA Thozhiyur Archives. These consist of various

manuscripts and printed groups which are cur-rently being catalogued and stored in a number of bookcases at St Georges Cathedral, Thozhiyur. The majority of the Syriac documents are de-scribed in a Handlist in by Dr David Taylor, cur-rently in preparation. There are also numerous further loose documents in Syriac, Malayalam and English which have not yet been catalogued. See also next item.

VB Visitors Book. This is a bound volume of blank

pages which has been used as a Visitors Book by the Metropolitans of the MISC from 18 to the present day, with a gap between 1956 and 1990.

One corpus of source material that it was not possible to locate were the volumes of evidence submitted in the ten years of litiga-tion from 1879 to 1889, commonly referred to as the Seminary Case. The Judgements have, however, been consulted. They often quote a length from the authorities they cite. To have incorporated a critical comparison between the accounts of events as laid before the various Courts and the account presented here, would have added considerably to the length of the present work, and would in effect constitute a separate project. Only occasional references are therefore included to the Judgements where these are judged to be of material significance for the present work. References to the majority judgement in the Travancore Royal Court of Final Appeal by The Chief Justice (K. Krishnaswamy Row) and A. Sitarama Iyer are cited as Judgment/Row-Iyer, followed by the paragraph number of the printed edition. References to W.E. Ormsbys minority dissent-ing judgement are cites as Judgement/Ormsby, followed by the page number (this Judgement not having numbered paragraphs).

xxxvii

ABBREVIATIONS

CCC Colonial Church Chronicle. HCI History of Christianity India. Published by Church

History Association of India. JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. DNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online at

www.oxforddnb.com

xxxix

NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY, EPISCOPAL NOMENCLATURE, SPELLING AND DATES

ECCLESIASTICAL In telling the story of the Malabar Independent Syrian Church it is necessary to deal with issues of division and doctrinal controversy between Christians. The terminology of such controversies - words such as 'Nestorian', 'Monophysite', 'Uniates' - can still cause hurt and misunderstanding in parts of the Church today. Except in di-rect quotations I have therefore tried to avoid terms with pejorative overtones and to use more neutral descriptions. In a few places I have used quotation marks to indicate the provisionality and fre-quent inaccuracy of such terms. Where necessary I have followed Brock and other recent writers in using the term Miaphysite for the Christology deriving in the main from Cyril of Alexandria and now accepted as orthodox by the Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian bodies.

For much of the 20th century and up to the present day a substantial section of the Syrian community has been divided over the issue of its relationship to the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. Is the Indian Church part of the Syrian Orthodox Church and hence under the Patriarchs jurisdiction, or is it an independent Church? The names given to the two groups have varied somewhat over the years. Currently in Kerala, the section which is under the ultimate jurisdiction of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch in Damascus it is often commonly referred to as Jacobite, a name which it ac-cepts and which seems to have no pejorative overtones. I have therefore used it here in that context. Those who maintain the in-dependence of the Syrian Church in India use the name Orthodox Syrian and Malankara Orthodox, which I have adopted.

I have used the name the Church of the East for the Church frequently described in history as the Nestorian Church. As Sebas-

xl THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

tian Brock has pointed out, the older usage is a lamentable misno-mer.

INDIAN USAGE The very name of the part of India where the events recounted here took place presents problems. For most of the existence of the MISC, the principal political divisions have been the rajahates of Travancore and Cochin, and the territory of British Malabar, formerly under the control of the Zamorin of Calicut. However, as these areas share broadly a common geography, culture and lan-guage, they are often referred to by such generic names as Mala-bar, Malankara or Malayalam.1 This can produce considerable confusion: the whole southwest coast of India, for example, is of-ten referred to by writers as the Malabar coast, when, in fact, much of it comprises the seaboard of Cochin and Travancore. On 1st November 1956, the three historic territories were combined into the single state of Kerala.2 For convenience, the term Kerala, although anachronistic, is used here as a generic term for the geo-graphical region. The appellation given by different writers is, of course, retained in direct quotations.

The question of nomenclature is further complicated by the current policy of the Government of India to replace Europeanised names with their indigenous originals, even when the former are of longstanding international usage. Thus Bombay is now Mumbai, Madras is Chennai and so on. In the area of India with which this study is most concerned, the following changes should be noted:

1 Malayalam (which is the name of the local vernacular language) is

thought to derive from mala (hill) and alam (dale), referring to the undulat-ing landscape of parts of the area. Malabar is a partially Arabicised form of the same word. Malankara is the name of an ancient port which came to be extended to the surrounding territory (Mundadan, p.12).

2 Some Tamil-speaking areas in the south were incorporated into Madras State (now Tamil Nadu), and a small section of the former South Kanara district of Madras State was transferred to Kerala. The chief crite-rion seems to have been linguistic. Kerala was the name of the realm of the Chera kings.

NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY xli

Cochin Kochi Travancore Thiruvithancore Calicut Kozhikode Trichur Thrissur Trivandrum Thiruvananthapuram Verapoly Verapuzha

In order to facilitate reference to historical sources, the deci-

sion has been made in most cases to retain the name in use prior to the recent Indianisation process.

PERSONAL NAMES Among Syrian Christians in Kerala the name traditionally had a threefold structure: Family/house name Fathers name Baptis-mal name. The first two of these are usually abbreviated to initials. Thus K.M. George = Kuthiyil Mathew George. This, it will be seen, is the reverse of the usual British, European and American conventions.

In the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, as in a number of Churches, a bishop receives a new name on consecration. In the Syrian Churches this is preceded by the title 'Mar' meaning 'Lord'. The West Syrian form is 'Mor', but, as will be discussed in the main text, the East Syrian pronunciation prevails in Kerala even among churches which, like the MISC, are West Syrian in episcopal suc-cession and rite. As the number of episcopal names in use is quite small, the individual's baptismal name is usually prefixed. Thus (to take the hypothetical example mentioned above), were K.M. George to be consecrated a bishop with the episcopal name Philoxenos, he would be called Geevarghese Mar Philoxenos (his baptismal name having been rendering into its Syriac form, or an Indian version of it). In Syriac the formula is Philoxenos who is Geevarghese ( pylksns dhw gwrgs).

Sometimes, however, an individual may be more commonly known by the name of his family or of the place from which he originated. So, for example, Malankara Metropolitan Mar Dionysios IV is usually known as Cheppat Mar Dionysios, rather than Phili-pose Mar Dionysios.

Of the fourteen bishops who have ruled over the MISC as Metropolitan, nine have borne the name episcopal Koorilose, three

xlii THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Philoxenos, one Athanasios and one Basilios. For the purposes of clarity I have numbered them according to their episcopal name, though often including their prefixed baptismal name. The thir-teenth Metropolitan was thus Joseph Mar Koorilose IX and not Joseph Mar Koorilose II, the fact that he was the ninth Metropoli-tan named Koorilose being more important than the fact that an earlier Koorilose happened to have the same baptismal name. I have applied this numbering only to the undisputed Metropolitans: two bishops (one, a Mar Ivanios of uncertain status in the early 19th century, and an assistant Paulose Mar Athanasions) I have left un-numbered.

The pattern A Mar B is also found in the Church of the East (for example Paulose Mar Paulose who was one of the consecrators of Mar Koorilose IX). Here, however, the use is less consistent. For example, the predecessor of the present Metropolitan of the Church of the East in India was generally referred to as Mar Thoma Dharmo, and his predecessor as Mar Timotheos Abimelek. I have generally used the commonly recognised forms

SPELLING AND TRANSLITERATION The spelling of names and places is notoriously difficult to stan-dardise. Different writers use different systems for transliterating Malayalam and Syriac, and Indian sources in particular frequently spell names in two or more different ways in the same document. In the present work 1 have tried to standardise as much as possible, though I have used an author's own spelling in direct quotations.

With regard to Malayalam, Brown gives a scientific system of transliteration.3 One main drawback of this is that it is not used in Kerala itself. As the present study is not primarily linguistic in na-ture, the decision has been taken to adopt current Indian usage, rather than a scientific transliteration system. While this should be of benefit to Indian readers, it does mean that usage is not entirely consistent.4 Readers should note that the name of Thozhiyur,

3 Indian Christians, p.308ff. 4 Susan Bayly found the same problem: Saints, Goddesses and Kings:

Muslims and Christians in South India Society 1700-1900, Cambridge, CUP, 1989, Indian ed. 1992), p.xiii.

NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY xliii

which they will encounter frequently, is pronounced approximately Tolly yoor.

Since Syriac names often derive from Greek, I have tried to use Greek rather than Latin forms when rendering them in the English: 'Gregorios' rather than 'Gregorius'. However, here, as elsewhere, some inconsistencies remain.

DATES For the majority of references the date given in the original is used, sometimes with the modern European equivalent in brackets or a footnote.

The Malayalam Era (ME) begins on 15th August 825 AD. This date was adopted by Rajah Udaya Marthanda Varma of Quilon on the advice of a council of learned men. It is still used in Kerala, alongside the European system.5

The months (with their approximate English equivalents) are:

Chingam August September Kanni September October Thulam October November Vrischikam November December Dhanu December January Makaram January February Kumbham February March Meenam March April Medam April May Edavam May June Midhunam June July Karkhidakam July - August

Syrian documents are often dated in the year of the Greeks.

This began with the accession of Seleucus I, the founder of the Seleucid dynasty, on 1st October 312BC.

The months (with approximate English equivalents) are:

5 K.P.Padmanabhe Menon, History of Kerala, New Delhi, Asian Edu-

cational Series, 1986, vol. IV, p.265.

xliv THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

teshrin qdem October teshrin hro November kanoon qdem December kanoun hro January shboth February odor March nison April eyor May haziran June tomuz July ob August elull September

xlv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research for the present book has taken well over a decade and I am conscious of the enormous debt I owe to a considerable number of people in India and elsewhere who have assisted me in various ways and made this book and its predecessor possible.

The whole project was initiated by the Most Revd Joseph Mar Koorilose IX, as Metropolitan of the Malabar Independent Syrian Church. Over the years he has devoted many hours to answering innumerable questions sent out from England. The answers to many of those questions, together with unstinting support, have also come from many members of the MISC. I wish to thank the Most Revd Cyril Mar Basilios, the current Metropolitan, and the priests and laity who have patiently answered my queries in many hours of discussions. Particular thanks are due to Mr M.P. Kochu-mon, who stimulated my examination of the sequence of events surrounding the consecration of Mar Koorilose I, and to Pulikottil Thambi Master who translated some Malayalam texts for me.

Bishops, priests and academics from all the jurisdictions of St Thomas heritage in Kerala have kindly given of their hospitality and knowledge during my various visits to India. From within the Mar Thoma Church I have benefited greatly from Metropolitans Alexander Mar Thoma, Philipos Mar Chrysostom and Joseph Mar Thoma together with most of the current bishops of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church. The Revd Dr George Mathew Kuthiyil and the Revd Dr Dr K.V. Mathew read the Chapter on Mathews Mar Athanasios and made helpful comments. Successive Principals of the Mar Thoma Seminary have given permission to work in the archives. Dr Zac Varghese of the Mar Thoma community in the UK, and the Revd Dr M.J.Joseph have kindly tracked down a number of texts.

Beyond the Mar Thoma Church, I wish to thank Fr Jacob Thekeparampil and Fr Thomas Koonammakkal of the St Ephrem

xlvi THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

Ecumenical Institute at Kottayam, for clearing up a number of points.

Dr Istvan Perczel has kindly read a number of Chapters and made the contents of some Malayalam and Syriac texts available to me.

The Most Revd Athanasios Toma Dawod, currently Syrian Orthodox Archishop in the UK, in the midst of dealing with the humanitarian crisis caused by the dispossession of the Christians of Iraq, kindly undertook to translate some 18th century Arabic letters for me.

Archdeacon Yonan of the Church of the East and the mem-bers of his community generously offered hospitality and reflec-tions on some of the issues discussed here.

Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira and Great Britain (of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople) answered a number of technical questions.

Dr David Taylor of the Oriental Institute at Oxford gener-ously gave of his time for a number of stimulating discussions in his study and assisted with some translations. Dr Sebastian Brock has shown a supportive interest and answered a number of queries.

A special word of thanks is owed to the Reverend Dr Phillip Tovey who allowed me free access to his collection of books on Indian subjects, and drew my attention to a number of important works that I should otherwise have overlooked. In addition, his companionship and advice during a visit to Kerala in May 2009 were invaluable. A special figure in the recent history of the Thoz-hiyur Church is the Very Revd Chorepiscopa Peter Hawkins who set up the MISC Support Group as a UK charity to assist the Church and has been a constant source of encouragement. Bishop Colin Buchanan, formerly manager of Grove Books Ltd., showed his own commitment to the Indian Church by publishing the 1992 short history which was the starting point for the present work.

The Trustees (Alan Hobbs, Phillip Tovey, Derek Turner, An-drea Weston and Zac Varghese) and members of the Malabar In-dependent Syrian Church Support Group have given patient but enthusiastic encouragement to the project.

I should also like to record my thanks to the Librarians and staff of the University of Birmingham (keepers of the CMS ar-chive), the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the British Library, the John Rylands Library at Manchester, the Royal Asiatic Society, the

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xlvii

Tamil Nadu State Archives at Chennai, the Mar Thoma Seminary at Kottayam, Ulverston County Library, and Mr Osborne, the ar-chivist at the CMS headquarters in Oxford.

Especial thanks are due to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and to the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association for generous grants which made the publication of the 1992 mono-graph possible. The Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius and the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association have made grants to-wards the cost of researching the present work. I am grateful, too, to my archivist brother Simon Fenwick for advice and for allowing me to sleep on his sofa during my visits to London.

Deeply indebted though I am to all the above and to many other individuals, the responsibility for errors and judgements re-mains my own.

I would also like to express my gratitude to my colleagues in the Free Church of England who have taken the exotically robed visitors from India in their stride and to their hearts.

Finally, I wish to thank George Kiraz and the staff of Gorgias Press for accepting the book for publication and their assistance with the process, and my son David Fenwick for formatting the final text.

Given the number of years that this book has been in prepara-tion, it is inevitable that I have overlooked some who have materi-ally assisted me. To them I offer my sincere apologies, but hope that seeing this book in print will be sufficient reward.

MAP OF TRAVANCORE, COCHIN AND BRITISH MALABAR CIRCA 1800

1

INTRODUCTION

The story of the St Thomas Christians of South India has been told many times before and the volume of literature about the commu-nity is immense. Within all the accounts of the last two hundred years the reader will find references to a small section of the St Thomas Christians variously described as the Thozhiyur Church, the Independent Syrian Church of Malabar, the Kattumangat sect, the Anjur Church, and the like. Most of the major histories devote only a page or two to this group, some relegate it to a foot-note. It is a Christian community that, along with its bishops, has largely been forgotten. It is the story of that community which forms the main subject of this book.1

My own involvement with this Christian community goes back to the mid 1980s. I was looking for a liturgical subject for doctoral research and the late Dr Geoffrey Cuming, the renowned Anglican liturgist, suggested the anaphoras of the Liturgies of St Basil and St James.2 I already had friends among the Greek Ortho-dox who use the Liturgy of St Basil at various times through the year, so during the years of my research I made contact with some of the Churches in the UK that used the Liturgy of St James. This led me to the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, with which the Church of England is in communion. Puzzled by references in Mar Thoma writers to the Thozhiyur Church, in 1986 I wrote to the Mar Thoma historian Dr K.T. Joy for further information. Early in the morning of 27th August 1986 Dr Joy handed my letter to the young priest Joseph Panakkal who was about to be consecrated the thir-

1 The official name of the community (from the middle of the 19th century) is The Malabar Independent Syrian Church, usually abbreviated to MISC, even within the community itself. This abbreviation will be used in the present work.

2 Eventually published as John R.K.Fenwick, The Anaphoras of St Basil and St James: An Investigation into their Common Origin (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 240), Rome, Pontificium Institutum Orientale, 1992.

2 THE FORGOTTEN BISHOPS

teenth Metropolitan of the Malabar Independent Syrian Church that very day. A few weeks later the new bishop Mar Koorilose IX wrote to me, thus beginning a friendship that has lasted to the present day.

In 1987 I visited Kerala for the first time as a guest lecturer of the Mar Thoma Church. During that visit I went to Thozhiyur for the first time and began to collect material which formed the basis of a small monograph which was published in 1992.3

India is full of fascinating communities, each with its own his-tory. What makes this particular community special is, as I said in my 1992 study, the fact that, It is impossible to understand the history of the ancient, vibrant and highly significant Christian community in South India without being aware of this Church and the crucial role it has played in that history. Further research since 1992 has strengthened that conviction. That is not, however, the current perception of the community now called the Malabar Inde-pendent Syrian Church. In India, for the last century at least, it has been largely forgotten by larger communities which in fact are in-debted to it. Outside India the Bishops at Thozhiyur were not for-gotten they had never been heard of.

Indian Christianity is a significant area of study in its own right. In many parts of the subcontinent Christian communities trace their origins to the frequently extremely sacrificial work and witness of evangelists from Europe and North America. Pre-dating these by many centuries, however, is a family of Churches which trace their origins to the dawn of the Christian era. The MISC is one of these.

In recent years these communities (which, as will be seen in Chapter 3, trace their origin to the Apostle Thomas) have been the source of much seminal thinking on topics which the whole Church is beginning to address, not least the issues of Church unity, the relationship between Gospel and Culture, dialogue with other faiths, liturgical inculturation, and so on. Recent theological agreements on the subject of Christology, which divided the Church in the fifth century may eventually restore eucharistic

3 John R.K.Fenwick, The Malabar Independent Syrian Church, Notting-

ham, Grove Books, 1992.

INTRODUCTION 3

communion between the Oriental Orthodox Churches - including the Indian and Syrian - and the family of Byzantine Orthodox Churches. The Indian Orthodox Church was a participant, along with other members of the Oriental Orthodox family, in a Joint Statement on Christology with the Anglican Communion, issued in 2002.4 The Church of the East concluded a historically highly sig-nificant agreement with the Roman Catholic Church in 1994. From within India itself the jurisdictions worshipping according to an-cient Syrian rites have provided precedent and model for recent liturgical reform elsewhere in the world Church. (The congrega-tional exchange of the Peace and the use of acclamations in the Eucharistic Prayer may be cited as examples now widely used in Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant rites.) European Chris-tian thinkers who visit or work in India return invigorated and thinking new thoughts - one has only to think of the contribution of men like Leslie Brown, Lesslie Newbigin and Stephen Neill. The eminent Russian Orthodox layman, Nicolas Zernov, spent almost a year in Kerala (1953-4) helping to establish a University College for the Indian Orthodox Church. He was greatly impressed by their ecumenical potential. It is important, too, to remember that the Churches which united in 1947 to form the Church of South India included some with a substantial proportion of Syrians.

For these and other reasons the story of the St Thomas Chris-tians of India deserves to be widely known - and within that story a knowledge of the MISC is inescapable, for the story cannot be told without it.

At the time the 1992 monograph was published I had only spent 48 hours at Thozhiyur, the headquarters of the MISC. Since then I have had the opportunity to return on five occasions and to collect substantial amounts of new information. The earlier work relied heavily on an English translation in typescript of a history of the MISC in Malayalam written by K.C.Verghese, one of the priests of the Church, in about 1972.5 I attempted to supplement that with

4 http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ministry/ecumenical /dialogues/oriental/docs/2002christology.cfm. Details of some of the other agreements will be given in later Chapters.

5 The Malayalam text (which does not seem to have been published until about 1981) and two English typescripts (one made in India, the


accounts of nineteenth century British visitors to India, closely re-searched histories such as those of Cheriyan, Brown and Daniel (none of whom devotes more than one page solely to the MISC), together with information supplied by the Metropolitan, and my own observations. It has now been possible to supplement that considerably with additional data from a number of sources.

One happy result of the 1992 work was that it elicited re-sponses from a number of Indian writers, in the main drawing my attention to material of which I had not been aware. I have been very happy to incorporate some of this in the present work and to acknowledge my debt to those who have assisted me in this way.

Several significant documentary resources have to come to light since 1992:

1. The collection of manuscripts mainly letters and reports among the Dutch records housed at the Tamil Nadu State Archives in Chennai. I am not aware that they have been read until now. Certainly, no direct reference to their contents appears in any of the histories of the Syrian community.

2. The collection in the Mar Thoma Seminary Library in Kot-

tayam. From this collection particular use has been made of material deriving from Metropolitan Mathews Mar Athanasios.

3. The archives at Thozhiyur. These have never been system-atically studied. In recent years, however, Dr David Taylor, Lecturer in Syriac at the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford, has visited Thozhiyur on two occasions and has commenced the work of cataloguing this unique col-lection. I am extremely grateful to Dr Taylor for giving me free access to his findings and for permission to quote

other a re-typing made in the UK) are deposited in Lambeth Palace li-brary. References to Vergheses work cite the page numbers of the UK typescript.

INTRODUCTION 5

from his as yet unpublished Handlist.

4. The Visitors Book at Thozhiyur. This was commenced in 1868 and continues to the present day, though with a sub-stantial gap from 1956 to 1990. Its entries shed fascinating light on the state of the Church and the issues that con-cerned it.

5. The records of the India Office, deposited in the British

Library, contain significant amounts of unpublished mate-rial which shed light on the situation in Malabar in the 18th and 19th centuries.

6. The papers of the Revd William Hodge Mill, stored in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. As recently as the 1980s Stephen Neill could write, No one who has written on the Thomas Christians appears to have consulted these pa-pers.6 In fact they contain a substantial amount of ex-tremely valuable material, of which considerable use has been made in the present work.

7. The work of Dr Istvan Perczel and others in digitising and publishing translations of Syriac and Malayalam texts in Kerala and elsewhere is making available significant in-digenous sources.7

8. Thozhiyur also houses a collection of photographs. These

are now succumbing to the effects of climate and insects. Copies have been made of the most significant and some of these feature in the present work as they provide a unique record of a number of aspects of the Churchs life. To these I have added a number of other photographs,

6 A History of Christianity in India, vol. 2, p.456. 7 The initial stages of this process (with particular reference to Thoz-

hiyur) are described in Istvan Perczel, Syriac Manuscripts in India: the present state of the cataloguing process, in The Harp, XV (2002) 289-297.


some taken by myself in Kerala. An annotated list of Illus-trations, explaining the reason why they have been se-lected, is provided.

9. A number of works of Middle Eastern origin have been

published in English, enabling that perspective to be added to the story.

10. Finally, further contact with members of the MISC over

the intervening years has brought to my attention a sub-stantial amount of oral tradition. Some of these narratives are shared by the whole community, others are preserved in particular families. They have been invaluable in filling in some of the gaps.

Exploring these and other sources revealed a fundamental di-

mension to the story of the MISC and the wider St Thomas Chris-tian community that has been hitherto almost completely over-looked. It is a commonplace of Indian Church history that a sub-stantial proportion of a community that had originally been Nes-torian performed a theological volte-face in the 17th century and adopted the diametrically opposite Christological position, becom-ing Monophysite.8 Moreover, this is often stated as having hap-pened almost in a single step.9 Furthermore, while some scholars have questioned this popular assumption that the community changed its ecclesial identity almost overnight, none have explored the role of the MISC in the gradual process that did in fact take place.10 That omission is corrected to some degree in the present

8 These terms and their undesirability will be discussed below. 9 A couple of recent examples may be given: In 1644, with the arrival

of the Jacobite bishop Mar Gregorious [sic] the West Syrian Church be-came established in Kerala (Susan Visvanathan, The Christians of Kerala: History, Belief and Ritual among the Yakoba, Madras, Oxford University Press, 1993, p.16); At this point [1665] the West Syrian Orthodox rite was adopted in India (Christine Chaillot, The Ancient Oriental Churches, in Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, The Oxford History of Christian Worship, Oxford, OUP, 2006, p.159).

10 Cardinal Eugene Tisserant in his Eastern Christianity in India: A His-tory of the Syro-Malabar Church from the Earliest times to the present day, (ET

INTRODUCTION 7

work. An exploration of the history of the MISC takes one into the heart of this transition and reveals it to be a much more complex process than is often assumed.

The present work also challenges another simplistic assump-tion. As the MISC is nowadays simply a small jurisdiction within that part of the Syrian community of West Syrian heritage, I had assumed that its history had no point of contact with the Romo-Syrians, whose descendants now constitute the Syro-Malabar Church. As the evidence presented below demonstrates, that as-sumption is totally incorrect. Far from having nothing to do with the Syrians of Roman obedience, the bishops of the MISC were very much at the interface between the two communities. This dis-covery required me to go back over the sources and look at them with new eyes.

A further incorrect assumption that I made was that it would be unnecessary to look at the history of the St Thomas Christians prior to the middle of the 18th century when the MISC began to come into being as a distinct jurisdiction. Here again, it is impossi-ble to understand what was happening in the 1750s onwards with-out understanding what had taken place before. This has meant that, to some extent, the present work has become yet another re-telling of the whole story of the St Thomas Christians.

The main criticisms that I received of the small 1992 book were (a) that the subject matter was very complicated, and (b) that I assumed too great a degree of specialised knowledge for the general reader. With regard to the first, I have tried to break the material down into smaller sections with a more liberal use of sub-headings. The subject matter, alas, remains complex, and is now considerably

E.R.Hambye) London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1957, for example, makes only occasional brief references to the MISC and nowhere dis-cusses the community in relation to the adoption of the West Syrian rite. Another Roman Catholic writer, Donald A. Attwater, states that It is not clear when the dissidents began to abandon their Chaldean or East Syrian liturgy for that of the Jacobites, the West Syrian or Antiochene (The Christian Churches of the East, Milwaukee, Thomas More Books, 1961, vol. 1, p.169).


more so thanks to the additional sources listed above. In view of the fact that many of these have never appeared in print before, I have deliberately included a significant amount of direct quotation in the main text and footnotes. This has inevitably added to the length of this study, but will enable readers to see for themselves the material on which I have based my judgements, and also give them a feel for a largely unknown world.

I have tried to meet the second criticism by including more background information, in particular about the Indian and Middle Eastern contexts and the impact of European involvement. As I have done so, I have become increasingly convinced that this is not something for which any apology is necessary: it is impossible to understand what was happening among the St Thomas Christians without being aware of events elsewhere. Middle Eastern patri-archs, Indian princes, European traders, soldiers and churchmen have all played a part in the story of the MISC. The first four Chap-ters of the present work therefore attempt to provide a brief framework into which the specific events of MISC history can be fitted and understood. The need for such a framework has been reinforced by the evidence presented here that the MISC, far from being rather removed from the main events of the Syrian commu-nity in India, has in fact been more intimately connected with them than was hitherto apparent. The current small size and marginalised status of the MISC has obscured the fact that, for about 150 years, the bishops of this community were at the heart of the events shap-ing the history of Syrian Christianity in Kerala. In the present vol-ume I have therefore tried to show how the story of the MISC re-lates to the wider context, and hope that by doing so I have not only demonstrated the significance of the Church, but have made the subject matter more accessible to a wide readership, without detracting from the usefulness of the work to the academic com-munity.11

11 One aspect of the wider perspective not explored, however, is the number of St Thomas Christians and their Churches. Many sources give (frequently contradictory) estimates of the numbers of Syrian congrega-tions at various points in the communitys history. Reconciling and analys-ing these would be a major study in its own right and no attempt is made to do so here.

INTRODUCTION 9

The interpretation of Indian Church history raises strong feel-ings and contributes to ecclesial division in India to the present day. History is often used as ammunition. I have therefore tried to do justice to Indian Roman Catholic, Malankara Orthodox, Syrian Or-thodox, Mar Thoma and Church of the East perspectives. All, of these, however, are influenced in their assessment of the MISC by its current status as the smallest of the Syrian Christian communi-ties, and therefore make only limited references to it. The present work seeks to redress that balance by establishing that something very different was envisaged in the 18th century and, indeed, existed for a time in the early 19th century. Some of the consequences of that are still evident to the present day. Other than telling the story from this perspective, there is no denominational bias intended in the present work.

Even so, the present work is not, alas, the definitive history of the MISC. Substantial primary resources remain to be explored. These include the records of the Dutch and British East India Companies and of the British administration in India which fol-lowed them. There are, too, voluminous Indian Court records which will no doubt yield up further valuable information. No sys-tematic study has yet been made of the Christian material in the archives of the princely states of Travancore and Cochin. The Syriac and Malayalam manuscripts held at Thozhiyur and at other places in Kerala (and probably in the Middle East) have further insights to reveal. Further work needs to be done to relate the life of this Christian community to the ethnographic and religious con-text in which it is situated. The strong Indian identity of the MISC also requires further exploration.

Until such studies are undertaken, I hope that the present work will bring to the attention of scholars and the wider Christian world, a community and its bishops who have been all but forgot-ten.

+ John Fenwick Ulverston, Cumbria,

Feast of St Thomas the Apostle, 3rd July2009

11

CHAPTER 1: THE INDIAN CONTEXT

This is an account of a community of Christians in India. That community, like almost every other Christian community, has two geographical foci.1

One focus is the Middle East or West Asia as the region is designated from an Indian perspective.2 Christianity is a Semitic faith, emerging out of a predominantly Semitic culture, focused on a Man whose mother tongue was a Semitic language, whose minis-try was defined and undergirded by Semitic Scriptures.3 The strongly historical nature of Christianity seen most clearly in the Incarnation means that all Christians must relate to the events that took place in biblical Israel and the surrounding region.

The other focus for Christians is their own particular country or culture Slav, West African, Anglo-Saxon or Japanese. In every case there is a necessary interaction between the context and cul-ture in which the biblical revelation took place and the receiving culture - in this case, that of India. India, itself, however, is a com-plex of widely differing climates and cultures. The precise focus here is that part of south-west India comprising the modern state of Kerala.4

1 The exceptions would be the ancient Christian communities with a continuous existence in the lands of the Bible.

2 Both terms will be used in the present work. 3 Semitic is used here as a general term for peoples whose related

languages fall within the group classed as semitic. It is not used here to mean Jewish (as in anti-Semitism). As the term is used here, Jews and Arabs are both Semites.

4 The modern state of Kerala came into existence on 1st November 1956, principally as a linguistic entity the territory occupied by Malaya-lam speakers. Historically, Christians were found in the three principal states that were combined in 1956 Travancore, Cochin and Malabar.


For all the apparent dissimilarity between the burning deserts of the Middle East and the lush, monsoon-fed coconut groves and paddy fields of Kerala, the two foci are here in fact remarkably close. For Christianity first came to this part of India in its original Semitic form, only slightly modified by Greek culture, and com-pletely without Latin or Anglo-Saxon influence. When Latin and Germanic expressions of the Faith eventually reached South India, their impact on the indigenous faith can at best be described as mixed, perhaps more honestly as disastrous.

As will be described below, the community of Christians which is today called the Malabar Independent Syrian Church owes the particular form of its existence to the interplay of some of these external forces. Its essential identity, however, is that unique blend of Semitic Christianity and Indian culture which characterizes the St Thomas Christians. Both strands the Semitic and the Indian are equally authentic. There is nothing alien about this culture in the context of Kerala where it has existed for nearly two thousand years. But, equally, it would be instantly recognizable in Antioch, Jerusalem, Damascus or Mosul.

The present work attempts to set the story of the MISC in its wider context. To do so exhaustively, however, would require an exploration of specialist fields such as anthropology, European colonization, Syrian culture, Indian history, and missiological stud-ies all beyond the scope of the present work. All that can be at-tempted here are broad brush strokes to help understand the uniqueness of the wider context in which the Christian community which forms the subject of this study lives, deeply embedded among its Hindu and Muslim neighbours.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT Kerala is one of the smallest states in modern India, comprising only 1.3% of the land area of that country.5 It lies between 8 18 Thus, although anachronistic, the term Kerala will be used when it is unnecessary or impossible to distinguish the precise subdivision in ques-tion. For general information and statistics on modern Kerala see the offi-cial government website: www.kerala.gov.in.

5 Numerous travellers descriptions of Kerala, spanning several centu-ries, exist. Two, which give a flavour of the richness of the country and its

THE INDIAN CONTEXT 13

and 12 48 North, and 74 52 and 77 24 East, forming a narrow coastal strip extending north on the shore of the Arabian Sea from the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent. Inland, its eastern boundary is formed by the mountain range known as the Western Ghats, rising to 10,000 feet. The very geography of the country is reflected in the terminology formerly used of the Christian com-munity. To the Portuguese, who seldom left the coastal strip, the native Christians, living inland, appeared as the Christians of the Serra (ie of the Mountains).

Much of the area between the mountains and the sea is low-lying and is crossed by numerous inlets, lagoons and backwaters, which form a distinctive feature of the topography of the region.6 As a result, transport by water has often been more efficient than by land.

Apart from among the mountains, the climate of Kerala is tropical and controlled by the monsoon. Annual rainfall is between 150 and 250. Frost is unknown (the temperature range is from approximately 19C and 39C) and the vegetation is lush and green all year round. The extensive forests contain teak, rosewood and sandalwood, together with a range of other species. The availability of timber has made it a basic building material throughout the his-tory of the region.

Agricultural production has concentrated on low-lying coastal plain. Here can be found rice (planted as paddy after the mon-soon), pulses, tapioca, cashew, banana, pineapple, jackfruit and mango. The coconut is a dominant crop, seen throughout the area. peoples at periods significant in the story of the MISC can be found in Paulinus a S. Bartholomeo, A Voyage to the East Indies: Observations made during a residence of thirteen years, between 1776 and 1789, in districts little fre-quented by Europeans; with notes and illustrations by John Reinhold Forster. Trans-lated from the German by William Johnston London, Vernor & Hood, 1800, pp.102-229; and Francis Day, The Land of the Perumauls, or Cochin, its Past and its Present, Madras, Adelphi Press, 1863.

6 Geologically, this area was once under the sea a fact reflected in the Hindu myth that the sage Parasu Rama caused the land to arise from the sea. Its low-lying nature meant that there was some flooding and dam-age as a result of the December 2004 tsunami, despite the fact that the Kerala coast faces in the opposite direction to the epicentre of the under-sea earthquake.


Alongside these, for many centuries the region has been famous for the production of peppers, ginger, cardamom and other spices. In the cooler, higher regions tea is now grown.

ETHNOGRAPHY7 The area has been inhabited from at least from Mesolithic times, with artefacts and monuments providing valuable dating evidence. Ethnically, the population contains evidence of many groups, some pre-Dravidian, such as Negritos and Proto-Australoids; others of the Indo-Dravidian type, being a basically Mediterranean people who exhibit some evidences of Negritoid, and possibly proto-Australoid, admixture.8

The Aryanisation of the indigenous popular by immigration and influence from the north was a gradual process,9 which pro-duced a unique form of Hinduism a compromise between the pantheism of the Aryans and the demonolatry of the Dravidians.10 Highly significant in this process were the Nambudiri Brahmins, whose ancestors moved into the region in the 8th century AD and were reinforced by further immigration in the 11th century.11 Isola-tion from other Brahmins led the Nambudiris to develop unique

7 See Menon, Cochin State Manual, pp.185-232 for a detailed discussion

of the people and customs of that State. 8 M.F.Ashley Montague, An Introduction to Physical Anthropology, Spring-

field, Illinois, Charles C.Thomas, 1960, p.460. 9 Mundadan, HCI, I, p.147. Mundadan gives a useful survey of the

process. See also Part Two of Brown, Indian Christians, for a detailed dis-cussion of the relationship of the Christian community with its Hindu context.

10 Menon, Cochin State Manual, p.186. 11 Eapen, A Study of Kerala History, Kottayam, Kollett Publication, re-

vised ed. 1986, p.32f. The spelling Namputhiri is also found. The Nam-budiris are an exclusive caste of Brahmins peculiar to Malabar, who, more than any other class of Brahmins, still retain their primitive habits and high sacerdotal position . They are believed to be the truest Aryans in South India [and] are supposed to be the descendants of a colony of sixty four villagers brought down by the renowned sage and warrior Sri Parasurama from all parts of India (Aiya, Travancore State Manual, II, p.247f). See Aiya, Travancore State Manual, I, p.214ff for a discussion of the peculiar customs of Kerala Brahmins.


characteristics.12 With the arrival of the Brahmins came the intro-duction of the caste system, which was to play a particularly strong role in Keralan society.13

A peculiarity of Kerala society was the Nayar class.14 In the as-similation of Malayali society to Hindu norms, the Nayars a farm-ing and fighting community - were originally categorised as sudras, the lowest caste. However, owing in part to the lack of kshastriyas (the Aryan ruling warrior class) the Nayars gradually rose to social prominence, so that eventually the Rajahs of Travancore, for ex-ample, were from this community.15 As late as the 18th century the group remained open and could assimilate new members, even non-Malayalis.16 The Nayars were traditionally matrilineal in their family organization, with the head of family being the eldest male member on the mothers side.17 The Syrian Christian community

12 See K. Ramavarna Rajah, The Brahmins of Malabar, JRAS, (July

1910) 625-639. 13 This may have been in part a result of relative freedom from Mus-

lim influence, at least in the more southerly parts: The southern end of Malayalim, unexposed as it has been to Mahomedan conquest, preserves the Hindoo religion in all its strictness of forms and ceremonies (W.H.Horsely, Memoir of Travancore, Historical and Statistical, compiled from various authentic records and personal observation by Lieutenant W.H.Horsley, Engi-neers, at the Request of Major-General J.S. Fraser, British Resident, 1839 (in Drury, Selections, p.30).

14 Also often spelt Nair. 15 See Brown, Indian Christians, p.168ff for a discussion of this. Logan

in his history of 1887 Malabar wrote, The central point of interest in any descriptive and historical account of the Malayali race [is] the position which was occupied for centuries on centuries by the Nayar caste in the Civil and Military organization of the province Their functions in the body politic have been wisely described in their own traditions as the eye, the hand and the order and to the present day we find them spread throughout the length and breadth of the land . Quoted in K.M.Panikkar, Malabar and the Dutch (being the History of the Fall of Nayar Power in Malabar), Bombay, D.B.Taraporevala Sons & Co., 1931, p.98.

16 Bayly, Saints, p.47f. 17 A mans heirs are his sisters children, his own wife and children

having no legal claim on his property, (Menon, Cochin State Manual, p.192). By this system sometimes referred to as Marumakattayam the child belonged to its mothers caste. The Brahmins, however, were gener-


came to share many Nayar practices (though not their matrilineal organization), but traditionally claimed higher status as a result of its descent from Brahmin converts.18

Pre-Aryanised Keralan society also seems to have lacked vai-syas (the trading caste) and, as will be seen in Chapter 3, there is some evidence that the Christian community came to occupy this niche.19

Although relatively isolated from the rest of India by the Western Ghats, Keralas coast has long made it accessible by sea. Extensive sea-borne trade has brought contact with the outside world. For many centuries, as a result, Kerala has had communities of Jews, Christians and Muslims, the majority of whom are now indistinguishable from the indigenous population.20

Despite the relatively late Aryanisation of south India, by the 16th century a complex system had evolved in Kerala: Caste rules and restrictions are more rigid and severe among the Malayalis than among other classes in India. Intermarriage, interdining and pollu-tion by touching or proximity are the tests by which caste status is determined.21 So pervasive was the mentality that even the small ally patrilineal (Makattayam), the child belonging to its fathers family (see D. Ferroli, SJ, The Jesuits in Malabar, Bangalore, Bangalore Press, 1939, vol, 1, p.37).

18 See Chapter 3. 19 Brown: it is easy to see that the coming of the Christians filled a

gap in society (Indian Christians, p.168). 20 As with most statements about Kerala, this requires some slight

modification. European writers often comment on the fair complexion of the Nayars (eg James Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, London, 1813, vol. I, p.378) and Syrian Christians (eg Francis Buchanan, A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, London, 1807, vol. II, p.391 describes a Syrian priest as very fair with high Jewish features). With a practiced eye, it is in fact possible to distinguish different types in the population, some of them characteristic of particular religious group-ings.

21 Census Report on Cochin (1911), quoted in Eapen, Kerala History, p.34. Malabar has a caste hierarchy of its own. The graduation of castes and the rules governing hypergan, endogamy and exogamy are analogous to those obtaining elsewhere in India, but the caste nomenclature and several of the customs and usages are peculiar to Malabar, (Menon, Cochin State Manual, p.191).


Jewish community had castes within it.22 Eapen describes Kerala as the worst example of caste division and colour prejudice in the whole of India.23

This was the society into which Christianity came and in which the MISC was born.

POLITICAL ORGANISATION The history of the numerous states and dynasties of ancient Mala-bar is a topic too complex for description here, and, in any case, is largely irrelevant to the story of the MISC. For our present pur-poses, it will be sufficient to record some broad features, before focusing on a shift in the local power structure that did impinge on the genesis of the MISC.

Kerala forms part of the ancient Tamilakam the area of Southern India occupied by people sharing a Dravidian language and culture broadly classed as Tamilian. By the early Christian era this had become divided among three dynasties who ruled among numerous local chieftains the Cheras (the western region) with their capital at Tiruvanjikalam, the Cholas (eastern region), with Uraiyur as their capital, and the Pandyas (northern region) centred on Madurai.24 During the Sangam era (broadly the first five centu-ries AD) Kerala was itself divided into five regions, with the central portion (where the Christian centres were established) under the rule of the Chera kings. Gradually the language spoken on the western side of the Ghats took on a distinctive form, chiefly due to a large influx of Sanskrit vocabulary, to produce Malayalam.25

22 Eapen, Kerala History, p.35. For an account of the present day Jew-

ish community and its possible imminent extinction, see Edna Fernandes, The Last Jews of Kerala, London, Portobello Books, 2008.

23 Eapen, Kerala History, p.33. See also the conclusion of George Jo-seph: Nowhere else in India did such a complex and refined system of ritual pollution exist (art. India, Syrian Christian community, in Ken Parry, David J. Melling, Dimitri Brady, Sidney H. Griffith & John Healey (eds.), The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, Oxford, Blackwell Pub-lishers, 2002, p.249). See also Aiya, Travancore State Manual, II, pp.228-420.

24 See Mundadan, HCI, I, p.68f. 25 Menon, Cochin State Manual, p.187. See Aiya, Travancore State Manual,

I, pp.421-442 for a discussion of the Malayalam language and literature.


Trading contact with Egyptians, Jews, Greeks and Romans became well established, with accounts of Indians traveling west as well as traders from West Asia and the Mediterranean reaching In-dia. Coins bearing the inscriptions of the Roman Emperors Augus-tus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero testify to significant con-tact in the first century AD.26

The constant changing kaleidoscope of alliances and wars be-tween the various dynasties and states lie beyond the scope of the present work. It is sufficient here to take note of some of the main players who would, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to the story of the MISC.

At the end of the 17th century the territory that is now Kerala had about fifty different rulers of varying importance.27 In the north of the region the most powerful of these was the Samuthiri of Kozhikode more familiar as the Zamorin of

Fenwick, John - Forgotten Bishops; The Malabar Independent Syrian Church and Its Place in the Story...

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