St. Thomas Christians
An ancient body of Christians on the east and west coasts of
India, claiming spiritual descent from the Apostle St. Thomas. The
subject will be treated under the following heads:
I. Their early traditions and their connection with the
Apostle
St. Thomas
II. The Apostle's tomb at Mylapur
III. This upheld by the Edessan Church
IV. For their earliest period they possess no written but a
traditional history
V. Record of these traditions embodied in a manuscript
Statement dated 1604
VI. The Syrian merchant Thomas Cana arrives in Malabar, an
important event in their history and the social benefits
therefrom
VII. The arrival also of two pious brothers, church-builders
VIII. Ancient stone crosses and their inscriptions
IX. Their early prelates
X. Were these Christians infected with Nestorianism before
1599?
XI. Medieval travellers on the Thomas Christians
XII. Their two last Syrian bishops
XIII. Archbishop Menezes and the Synod of Diamper
XIV. Their first three Jesuit bishops
XV. The Carmelite Period
XVI. Two Latin Vicars Apostolic
XVII. Divided into three vicariates with native bishops
I. Their early traditions and their connection with the Apostle
St. Thomas
Interest in the history of these Christians arises from more than
one feature. Their ancient descent at once attracts attention.
Theophilus (surnamed the Indian) an Arian, sent by Emperor
Constantius (about 354) on a mission to Arabia Felix and
Abyssinia, is one of the earliest, if not the first, who draws our
attention to them. He had been sent when very young a hostage a
Divoeis, by the inhabitants of the Maldives, to the Romans in the
reign of Constantine the Great. His travels are recorded by
Philostorgius, an Arian Greek Church historian, who relates that
Theophilus, after fulfilling his mission to the Homerites, sailed
to his island home. Thence he visited other parts of India,
reforming many things -- for the Christians of the place heard the
reading of the Gospel in a sitting, etc. This reference to a body
of Christians with church, priest, liturgy, in the immediate
vicinity of the Maldives, can only apply to a Christian Church and
faithful on the adjacent coast of India, and not to Ceylon, which
was well known even then under its own designation, Taprobane. The
people referred to were the Christians known as a body who had
their liturgy in the Syriac language and inhabited the west coast
of India, i.e. Malabar. This Church is next mentioned and located
by Cosmas Indicopleustes (about 535) "in Male (Malabar) where the
pepper grows"; and he adds that the Christians of Ceylon, whom he
specifies as Persians, and "those of Malabar" (the latter he
leaves unspecified, so they must have been natives of the country)
had a bishop residing at Caliana (Kalyan), ordained in Persia, and
one likewise on the island of Socotra.
II. The Apostle's tomb at Mylapur
St. Gregory of Tours (Glor. Mart.), before 590, reports that
Theodore, a pilgrim who had gone to Gaul, told him that in that
part of India where the corpus (bones) of Thomas the Apostle had
first rested (Mylapur on the east or the Coromandel Coast of
India) there stood a monastery and a church of striking dimensions
and elaboratedly adorned, adding: "After a long interval of time
these remains had been removed thence to the city of Edessa." The
location of the first tomb of the Apostle in India is proof both
of his martyrdom and of its Apostolate in India. The evidence of
Theodore is that of an eyewitness who had visited both tombs --
the first in India, while the second was at Edessa. The primitive
Christians, therefore, found on both coasts, east and west,
witness to and locate the tomb at Mylapur, "St. Thomas", a little
to the south of Madras; no other place in India lays any claim to
possess the tomb, nor does any other country. On these facts is
based their claim to be known as St. Thomas Christians.
III. This upheld by the Edessan Church
Further proof may be adduced to justify this claim. A Syrian
ecclesiastical calender of an early date confirms the above. In
the quotation given below two points are to be noted which support
its antiquity -- the fact of the name given to Edessa and the fact
the memory of the translation of the Apostle's relics was so fresh
to the writer that the name of the individual who had brought them
was yet remembered. The entry reads: "3 July, St. Thomas who was
pierced with a lance in India. His body is at Urhai [the ancient
name of Edessa] having been brought there by the merchant Khabin.
A great festival." It is only natural to expect that we should
receive from Edessa first-hand evidence of the removal of the
relics to that city; and we are not disappointed, for St. Ephraem,
the great doctor of the Syrian Church, has left us ample details
in his writings. Ephraem came to Edessa on the surrender of
Nisibis to the Persians, and he lived there from 363 to 373, when
he died. This proof is found mostly in his rhythmical
compositions. In the forty-second of his "Carmina Nisibina" he
tells us the Apostle was put to death in India, and that his
remains were subsequently buried in Edessa, brought there by a
merchant. But his name is never given; at that date the name had
dropped out of popular memory. The same is repeated in varying
form in several of his hymns edited by Lamy (Ephr. Hymni et
Sermones, IV). " It was to a land of dark people he was sent, to
clothe them by Baptism in white robes. His grateful dawn dispelled
India's painful darkness. It was his mission to espouse India to
the One-Begotten. The merchant is blessed for having so great a
treasure. Edessa thus became the blessed city by possessing the
greatest pearl India could yield. Thomas works miracles in India,
and at Edessa Thomas is destined to baptize peoples perverse and
steeped in darkness, and that in the land of India."
IV. For their earliest period they possess no written but a
traditional history
These Christians have no written records of the incidents of their
social life from the time of their conversion down to the arrival
of the Portuguese on the coast, just as India had no history until
the arrival of the Mohammedans.
V. Record of these traditions embodied in a manuscript Statement
dated 1604
Fortunately the British Museum has a large collection consisting
of several folio volumes containing manuscripts, letters, reports,
etc., of Jesuit missions in India and elsewhere; among these in
additional volume 9853, beginning with the leaf 86 in pencil and
525 in ink, there is a "Report" on the "Serra" (the name by which
the Portuguese designated Malabar), written in Portuguese by a
Jesuit missionary, bearing the date 1604 but not signed by the
writer; there is evidence that this "Report" was known to F. de
Souza, author of the "Oriente Conquistado", and utilized by him.
The writer has carefully put together the traditional record of
these Christians; the document is yet unpublished, hence its
importance. Extracts from the same, covering what can be said of
the early part of this history, will offer the best guarantee that
can be offered. The writer of the "Report" distinctly informs us
that these Christians had no written records of ancient history,
but relied entirely on traditions handed down by their elders, and
to these they were most tenaciously attached.
Of their earliest period tradition records that after the death of
the Apostle his disciples remained faithful for a long time, the
Faith was propagated with great zeal, and the Church increased
considerably. But later, wars and famine supervening, the St.
Thomas Christians of Mylapur got scattered and sought refuge
elsewhere, and many of them returned to paganism. The Christians,
however, who were on the Cochin side, fared better than the
former, spreading from Coulac (Quilon) to Palur (Paleur), a
village in the north of Malabar. These had fared better, as they
lived under native princes who rarely interfered with their Faith,
and they probably never suffered real persecution such as befell
their brethren on the other coast; besides, one of the paramount
rajahs of Malabar, Cheruman Perumal, had conferred on them a civil
status. The common tradition in the country holds that from the
time of the Apostle seven churches were erected in different parts
of the country, besides the one which the Apostle himself had
erected at Mylapur. This tradition is most tenaciously held and is
confirmed by the "Report". It further asserts that the Apostle
Thomas, after preaching to the inhabitants of the Island of
Socotra and establishing there a Christian community, had come
over to Malabar and landed at the ancient port of Cranganore. They
hold that after preaching in Malabar the Apostle went over to
Mylapur on the Coromandel Coast; this is practicable through any
of the many paths across the dividing mountain ranges which were
well known and much frequented in olden times. The Socotrians had
yet retained their Faith when in 1542 St. Francis visited them on
his way to India. In a letter of 18 September of the same year,
addressed to the Society at Rome, he has left an interesting
account of the degenerate state of the Christians he found there,
who were Nestorians. He also tells us they render special honours
to the Apostle St. Thomas, claiming to be descendants of the
Christians begotten to Jesus Christ by that Apostle. By 1680 when
the Carmelite Vincenzo Maria di Santa Catarina landed there he
found Christanity quite extinct, only faint traces yet lingering.
The extinction of this primitive Christanity is due to the
oppression of the Arabs, who now form the main population of the
island, and to the scandelous neglect of the Nestorian Patriarchs
who in former times were wont to supply the bishop and clergy for
the island. When St. Francis visited the island a Nestorian priest
was still in charge.
VI. The Syrian merchant Thomas Cana arrives in Malabar
There is one incident of the long period of isolation of the St.
Thomas Christians from the rest of the Christian world which they
are never tired of relating, and it is one of considerable
importance to them for the civil status it conferred and secured
to them in the country. This is the narrative of the arrival of a
Syrian merchant on their shores, a certain Mar Thoma Cana -- the
Portuguese have named him Cananeo and styled him an Armenian,
which he was not. He arrived by ship on the coast and entered the
port of Cranganore. The King of Malabar, Cheruman Perumal, was in
the vicinity, and receiving information of his arrival sent for
him and admitted him to his presence. Thomas was a wealthy
merchant who had probably come to trade; the King took a liking to
this man, and when he expressed a wish to acquire land and make a
settlement the King readily acceded to his request and let him
purchase land, then unoccupied, at Cranganore. Under the king's
orders Thomas soon collected a number of Christians from the
surrounding country, which enabled him to start a town on the
ground marked out for his occupation. He is said to have collected
seventy-two Christian families (this is the traditional number
always mentioned ) and to have installed them in as many separate
houses erected for them; attach to each dwelling was a sufficient
piece of land for vegetable cultivation for the support of the
family as is the custom of the country. He also erected a dwelling
for himself and eventually a church. The authorization to possess
the land and dwellings erected was granted to Thomas by a deed of
paramount Lord and Rajah of Malabar, Cheruman Perumal, said to
have been the last of the line, the country having been
subsequently divided among his feudatories. (The details given
above as well as what follows of the copper plate grant are taken
from the "Report".) The same accord also speak of several
privileges and honours by the king to Thomas himself, his
descendants, and to the Thomas Christians, by which the latter
community obtained status above the lower classes, and which made
them equal to the Nayars, the middle class in the country.
The deed read as follows:
May Cocurangon [personal name of the king] be prosperous, enjoy a
long life and live 100,000 years, divine servant of the gods,
strong, true, just, full of deeds, reasonable, powerful over the
whole earth, happy,conquering, glorious, rightly prosperous in the
service of the gods, in Malabar, in the city of the Mahadeva [the
great idol of the temple in the vicinity of Cranganore] reigning
in the year of Mercury on the seventh day [Portuguese text: elle
no tepo de Mercurio de feu to no dia, etc.] of the mouth of March
before the full moon the same king Cocurangon being in Carnallur
there landed Thomas Cana, a chief man who arrived in a ship
wishing to see the farthest parts of the East. And some men seeing
how he arrived informed the king. The king himself came and saw
and sent for the chief man Thomas, and he disembarked and came
before the king, who spoke graciously to him. To honour him he
gave him his name, styling him Cocurangon Cana, and he went to
rest in his place, and the king gave him the city of
Mogoderpatanam, (Cranganore) for ever. And the same king being in
his great prosperity went one day to hunt in the forest, and he
hastily sent for Thomas, who came and stood before the king in a
propitious hour, and the king consulted the astrologer. And
afterwards the king spoke to Thomas that he should build a town in
that forest, and he made reverence and answered the king: I
require this forest for myself', and the king granted it to him
for ever. And forthwith another day he cleared the forest and he
cast his eyes upon it in the same year on the eleventh of April,
and in a propetious time gave it to Thomas for a heritage in the
name of the king, who laid the first stone of the church and the
house of Thomas Cana, and he built there a town for all, and
entered the church and prayed there on the same day. After these
things Thomas himself went to the feet of the king and offered his
gifts, and this he asked the king to give that land to him and his
descendants; and he measured out two hundred and sixty-four
elephant cubits and gave them to Thomas and his descendants for
ever, and jointly sixty-two houses which immediately erected
there, and gardens with their enclosures and paths and boundaries
and inner yards. And he granted seven kinds of musical instruments
and all honours and the right of travelling in a palanquin, and he
conferred on him dignity and the privilege of spreading carpets on
the ground and the use of sandals, and to erect a pavilion at his
gate and ride on elephants, and also granted five taxes to Thomas
and his companions, both men and women, for all his relations and
to the followers of his law for ever.
The said king gave his name and these princes witnessed it...
Then follow the names of eight witnesses, and a note is added by
the Portuguese translator that this is the document by which the
Emperor of all Malabar gave the land of Cranganore to Thomas Cana
and also to Christians of St. Thomas. This document,
Transcribed from the manuscript "Report", has been carefully
translated into English, as it forms the "Great Charter" of the
St. Thomas Christians. The "Report" adds: "and because at that
time they reckoned the era in cycles of twelve years according to
the course, therefore they say in the Olla [Malayalam term for a
document written on palm leaf] that the said settlement was
founded in the year of the mercury... that mode of reckoning is
totally forgotten, for the last seven hundred and seventy-nine
years in all this Malabar time has been reckoned by the Quilon
era. However, since the said Perumal, as we have said above, died
more than a thousand and two hundred years, it follows: that same
number of years have elapsed since the Church and Christians were
established at Cranganore." The writer of the "Report" had
previously stated " it is one thousand and two hundred and fifty
and eight years since Perumal, as we have said above, died on the
first of March". Deducing the date of the "Report" this would give
A.D. 346 for his death. Diego de Couto ( Decada XII ), quoting the
above grant in full, says that the Syrian Christians fix A.D. 811
as corresponding to the date borne on the grant; the first is far
too early, and the second is an approximately probable date. The
"Report" informs us that the copper plates on which this deed or
grant was inscribed were taken away to Portugal by Franciscan
Fathers, who left behind a translation of the same. It is known
that the Syrian Bishop of Malabar, Mar Jacob, had deposited with
the Factor of Cochin all the Syrian copper grants for safe
custody; providing however that when necessary access could be had
to the same. Gouvea at p. 4 of his "Jornada" says that after
having remained there for some long time they could not be found
and were lost through some carelessness; de Couto asserts the same
in the passage quoted above and also elsewhere. In 1806 at the
suggestion of Rev. Claude Buchanan, Colonel Macauly, the British
resident, ordered a careful search for them and they turned up in
the record room of Cochin town. The tables then contained (1) the
grant to Irani Cortton of Cranganore, and (2) the set of plates of
the grant to Maruvan Sopi Iso of Quilon, but those of the grant to
Thomas Cana were not among them; had they not been removed they
would have been found with other plates; this confirms the
statement of the writer of the "Report" that they had been taken
to Portugal. From what is stated in the royal deed to Thomas Cana
it may be taken for granted that the latter brought with him a
small colony of Syrians from Mesopotamia, for the privileges
conceded include his companions, both men and women, and all his
relations.
VII. The arrival also of two pious brothers, church-builders
Besides the arrival of Thomas Cana and his colony, by which the
early Christians benefited considerably, the "Report" also records
the arrival on this coast of two individuals named Soper Iso and
Prodho; they are said to have been brothers and are supposed to
have been Syrians. The "Report" gives the following details; they
came to possess a promonotory opposite Paliport on the north side,
which is called Maliankara, and they entered the port with a large
load of timber to build a church; and in the Chaldean books of
this Serra there is no mention of them, except that they were
brothers, came to Quilon, built a church there, and worked some
miracles. After death they were buried in the church they had
erected; it is said that they had built other smaller churches in
the country; they were regarded as pious men and were later called
saints, their own church was eventually dedicated to them as well
as others in the country. Archbishop Alexis Menezes afterwards
changed the dedication of these churches to other saints in the
Roman calender. There is one important item that the "Report" has
preserved: "the said brothers built the church of Quilon in the
hundredth year after the foundation of Quilon." (This era
commences from 25 August, A.D. 825, and the date will thus be A.D.
925). The second of the aforesaid copper-plates mention Meruvan
Sober Iso, one of the above brothers. The "Report " also makes
mention of pilgims coming from Mesopotamia to visit the shrine of
the Apostle at Mylapur; some of these at times would settle there
and others in Malabar. It may be stated here that the Syrians of
Malabar are as a body natives of the land by descent, and the
Syriac trait in them is that of their liturgy, which is in the
Syrian language. They call themselves Syrians by way of
distinction from other body of Christians on the coast, who belong
to the Latin Rite. The honorific appellation bestowed upon them by
the rulers of the country is that of Mapla, which signifies great
son or child, and they were commonly so called by the people; this
appellation also have been given to the descendants of Arabs in
the country; the St. Thomas Christians now prefer to be called
Nasrani (Nazarenes), the designation given by the Mohammedans to
all Christians.
VIII. Ancient stone crosses and their inscriptions
There are certain stone crosses of ancient date in southern India,
bearing inscriptions in Pahlavi letters. Extraordinary legends
have been spread about them in some parts of Europe; the present
writer was shown an engraving purporting to reproduce one of them,
with a legend of the Apostolate and martyrdom of St. Thomas, a
reproduction of the inscription on his crosses. This was attached
to the calender of one of the dioceses of France, and this writer
was asked if it were authentic.
To prevent the spreading of such reports it may be useful to state
here of these crosses one is in the Church of Mount St. Thomas,
Mylapur, discovered in 1547 after the arrival of the Portuguese in
India; other is in the church of Kottayam, Malabar. Both are of
Nestorian origin, are engraved as a bas-relief on the flat stone
with ornamental decorations around the cross, and bear an
inscription. The inscription has been variously read. Dr. Burnell,
an Indian antiquary, says that both crosses bear the same
inscription, and offer the following reading: "In punishment by
the cross was the suffering of this one, Who is the true Christ,
God above and Guide ever pure." These crosses bear some
resemblance to the Syro-Chinese Nestorian monument discovered in
1625 at Singan-fu, an ancient capital of China but erected in 781
and commemorating the arrival in China of Chaldean Nestorian
missionaries in 636.
IX. Their early prelates
Of the prelates who governed the Church in India after the
Apostle's death very little is known; that little is collected and
reproduced here. John the Persian, who was present at the Council
of Nice (325), is the first known to history claiming the title.
In his signature to the degrees of the Council he styles himself;
John the Persian [presiding] over the churches in all Persia and
Great India. The designation implies that he was the [primate]
Metropolitan of Persia and also the Bishop of Great India. As
metropolitan and the chief bishop of the East he may have
represented at the council the catholics of Seleucia. His control
of the Church in India could only have been exercised by his
sending priests under his juridiction to minister to those
Christians. It is not known at what date India first commenced to
have resident bishops; but between the years 530-35 Cosmas
Indicopleustes in his "topographia" informs us of the presence of
a bishop residing in Caliana, the modern Kalyan at a short
distance from Bombay. That residence was, in all probability,
chosen because it was then the chief port of commerce on the west
coast of India, and had easy access and communication with Persia.
We know later of a contention which took place between Jesuab of
Adiabene the Nestorian Patriarch and Simeon of Ravardshir, the
Metropolitan of Persia, who had left India unprovided with bishops
for a long period. The Patriarch reproached him severely for this
gross neglect. We may take it that up to the period 650-60 the
bishops sent to India, as Cosmas has said, were consecrated in
Persia, but after this gross neglect the patriarch reserved to
himself the choice and consecration of the prelates he sent out to
India, and this practice was continued till the arrival of the
Portuguese on the coast in 1504.
Le Quien places the two brothers Soper Iso and Prodho on the list
of bishops of India, but Indian tradition gives it no support, and
in this the British Museum Manuscript Report and Gouvea (Jornada,
p. 5) concur. The brothers were known as church-builders, and were
reputed to be holy men. Moreover, to include Thomas Cana in the
lists of bishops is preposterous on the face of the evidence of
the copper-plate grant. The "Report" mentions a long period when
there was neither bishop nor priest surviving in the land, for
they had all died out; the only clerical survival was a deacon far
advanced in age. The ignorant Christians, finding themselves
without prelates, made him say Mass and even ordain others, but as
soon as prelates came from Babylon they put a stop to this
disorder. The next authentic information we have on this head
comes from the Vatican Library and has been published by Assemani
(Bibli. Or., III, 589). It consists of a statement concerning two
Nestorian bishops and their companions and a letter the former
written in Syriac to the Patriarch annoncing their arrival, dated
1504; there is a translation in Latin added to the documents. In
1490 the Christians of Malabar dispatched three messengers to ask
the Nestorian Patriarch to send out bishops; one died on the
journey, the other two presented themselves before the Patriarch
and delivered their message; two monks were selected and the
Patriach consecrated them bishops, assigning to one the name of
Thomas and to the other that of John. The two bishops started on
their journey to India accompanied by the two messengers. On their
arrival they were received with great joy by the people, and the
bishops commenced consecrating altars and ordaining a large number
of priests "as they had been for a long time deprived of bishops".
One of them, John, remained in India, while the other Thomas,
accompanied by Joseph, one of the messengers, returned to
Mesopotamia, taking with them the offerings collected for the
patriarch. Joseph returned to India in 1493, but Thomas remained
in Mesopotamia.
After about ten years, when the next patriarch ordained three
other bishops for India, Thomas went back with them. These new
bishops were also chosen from the monks, one was named Jaballa (he
was the metropolitan), the second was named Denha, and the third
jacob. These four bishops took ship from Ormus and landed at
Kananur; they found there some twenty Portuguese who had recently
arrived and presented themselves to them, said they were
Christians, explained their condition and rank, and were kindly
treated. Of this large number of bishops, only one remained to
work, and this was Mar Jacob; the other three, including the
metropolitan, after a short time returned to their country. Gouvea
adds that they were either dissatisfied with their charge or did
not like the country. The Portuguese writers mention only two
bishops as residents, John who had come before their arrival in
India and Mar Jacob. Nothing further is known of John but Jacob
lived in the country till his death. St. Francis Xavier makes a
very pretty elogium of him in a letter written to King John III of
Portugal on 26 January, 1549. "Mar Jacob [or Jacome Abuna, as St.
Francis styles him] for forty-five years has served God and your
Highness in these parts, a very old, a virtuous, and a holy man,
and at the same time unnoticed by your Highness and by almost all
in India. God rewards him . . . He is noticed only by the Fathers
of St. Francis, and they take so good care of him that nothing
more is wanted . . . He has laboured much among the Christians of
St. Thomas, and now in his old age he is very obedient to the
customs of the Holy Mother Church of Rome." This elogium of St.
Francis sums up his career for the forty-five years he worked in
Malabar (1504-49). He came out as a Nestorian, remained such
during his early years, but gradually as he came in touch with the
Catholic missionaries he allowed them to preach in his churches
and to instruct his people; in his old age he left Cranganore and
went to live in the Franciscan convent at Cochin and there he died
in 1549. There remain two others -- the last of the Mesopotamian
prelates who presided over these Christians -- Mar Joseph and Mar
Abraham; their career will be detailed further on.
X. Were these Christians infected with Nestorianism before 1599?
When Cosmas gave us the information of the existence of a
Christian community in "Male (Malabar) where the pepper is grown"
he also supplied us with additional details: that they have a
bishop residing at Kalyan; that in Taprobano [Ceylon] "an island
of interior India where the Indian Ocean is situated" there is a
"Christian Church with clergy and the faithful; similarly in the
island of Dioscordis [Socotra] in the same Indian Ocean." Then he
enumerates the churches in Arabia Felix, Bactria, and among the
Huns; and all these churches are by him represented to be
controlled by the Metropolitan of Persia. Now at that time the
holder of this dignity was Patrick, the tutor, as Assemani
designates him, of Thomas of Edessa, a prominent Nestorian to
which sect Cosmas also belonged; hence his interest in supplying
all these details. The bishop and clergy whom the Metropolitan,
Patrick, would send out to all the above-mentioned places and
churches would and must have been undoubtedly infected with one
and the same heresy. Hence it is quite safe to conclude that at
the time of the visit of Cosmas to India (A.D. 530-35) all these
churches, as also the Church in India, were holding the Nestorian
doctrine of their bishops and priests. Nor should this historical
fact cause surprise when we take into consideration the
opportunities, the bold attitude and violent measures adopted by
the promoters of this heresy after expulsion from the Roman
Empire. When the Emperor Zeno ordered Cyrus, Bishop of Edessa, to
purge his diocese of that heresy (A.D. 489), the Nestorians were
forced to seek refuge across the Roman boundary into Persia. Among
them were the banished professors and students of the Persian
School of Edessa, the centre of the Nestorian error, and they
found refuge and protection with Barsumas, Metropolitan of
Nisibis, himself a fanatical adherent of Nestorius. Barsumas at
this time also held from the Persian king the office of governor
of the frontier.
With the influence Barsumas possessed at court it was an easy
thing for him to make the king, already so disposed, believe that
the actual bishops holding sees in his territory were friendly to
his enemies, the Romans, and that it would be better to replace
them by men he knew who would owe allegiance only to the Persian
monarch. This stratagem rapidly succeeded in capturing most of
those sees; and the movement became so strong that, although
Barsumas predeceased Acka (Acacius), the occupant of the chief see
of Seleucia, a Catholic, yet a Nestorian was selected to succeed
the latter (A.D. 496). Thus within the short space of seven years
the banished heresy sat mistress on the throne of Seleucia, in a
position to force every existing see eastward of the Roman Empire
to embrace the heresy and to secure its permanence. Thus the
Indian Church suffered the same fate which befell the Churches of
Persia, and by 530-35 we find that she has a Nestorian prelate
consecrated in Persia and presiding at Kalyan over her future
destiny. If further proof is wanted to uphold the above finding,
we offer the following historical facts of the control exercised
by the Nestorian Patriarch. In 650-60, as above stated, Jesuab of
Adiabene claimed authority over India and reproached Simeon of
Revardshir, the Metropolitan of Persia, for not having sent
bishops to India and so deprived that Church of the succession of
her ministry. In 714-28 Saliba Zacha, another Nestorian Patriarch,
raised the see of India to metropolitan rank. Again in 857
Theodosius, another Nestorian Patriarch, included the See of India
among the exempted which, owing to distance from the patriarchal
see, should in future send letters of communion but once in six
years. This ruling was subsequently incorporated in a synodal
canon.
If we look to the general tradition of the St. Thomas Christians
it will be found that all their prelates came from Babylon, the
ancient residence as they say, of the Patriarch or Catholicos of
the East. It is further known and acknowledged by them that
whenever they remained deprived of a bishop for a long time, they
used to send messengers to that Patriarchate asking that bishops
be sent out to them. Sufficient proof of this practice has been
given above when discussing the arrival of four bishops in 1504.
The Holy See was fully aware that the Malabar Christians were
under the control of the Nestorian Patriarch. When Julius III gave
Sulaka his Bull of nomination as the Catholic Chaldean patriarch,
he distinctly laid down the same extent of jurisdiction which had
been claimed and controlled by his late Nestorian predecessor;
hence in the last clause it is distinctly laid down: "In Sin
Massin et Calicuth et tota India." It becomes necessary to fix
this historical truth clearly, because some in Malabar deny this
historical fact. They would wish people to believe that all the
Portuguese missionaries, bishops, priests, and writers were
completely mistaken when they styled them Nestorians in belief,
and because of this false report all subsequent writers continued
to call them Nestorians. The reader who has gone through the
statement of facts above related must be conscious that such an
attempt at distorting or boldly denying public facts is utterly
hopeless. They maintain, in support of their false view, that
there always had been a small body among the Chaldeans in
Mesopotamia who remained attached to the true Faith, and from them
they received their bishops. This plea is historically false, for
the bishops they received all came to them from the Nestorians,
and as to the hypothesis of the existence during all these
centuries back of a Catholic party among the Nestorian Chaldeans,
it is too absurd to be discussed. It was only after the conversion
of Sulaka in 1552 that the Chaldeans in part returned to the unity
of faith. The truth is that the Malabar Church remained from A.D.
496 up till then in heresy.
XI. Medieval travellers on the Thomas Christians
During the centuries that these Christians were isolated from the
rest of Christendom, their sole intercourse was limited to
Mesopotamia, whence the Nestorian Patriarch would from time to
time supply them with prelates. But from the close of the
thirteenth century Western travellers, chiefly missionaries sent
out by the popes, sent to the West occasional news of their
existence. Some of these it will be useful to reproduce here. The
first who informed the world of the existence of these St. Thomas
Christians was Friar John of Monte Corvino. After he had spent
several years as a missionary in Persia and adjoining countries,
he proceeded to China, passing through the Indian ports between
the years 1292 and 1294. He tells us in a letter written from
Cambales (Peking) in 1305 that he had remained thirteen months in
that part of India where the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle
stood (Mylapore); he also baptized in different places about one
hundred persons. In the same letter he says that there were in
Malabar a few Jews and Christians, but they were of little worth;
he also says that "the inhabitants persecute much the Christians."
(Yule, "Cathay and the Way Thither," I)
The next visitor is Marco Polo, who on his return from China (c.
1293) touched the India of St. Thomas. Of his tomb he tells us:
"The body Of Messer Saint Thomas the Apostle lies in the province
of Malabar, at a certain little town having no great population;
'tis a place where few traders go . . . Both Christians and
Saracens however greatly frequent it in pilgrimage, for the
Saracens also hold the Saint in great reverence....The Christians
who go in pilgrimage take some of the earth from the place where
the Saint was killed and give a portion thereof to any who is
sick, and by the power of God and of St. Thomas the sick man is
incontinently cured. . . . The Christians," he resumes later, "who
have charge of the church have a great number of Indian nut trees
[coconuts], and thereby get their living" (Marco Polo, Yule's, 2nd
edit., II, 338). Friar Jordan, a Dominican, came to India as a
missionary in 1321; he then had as companions four Franciscan
friars, but on approaching India he had parted from them to make
diversion; in the meanwhile the vessel conveying the others was by
stress of weather compelled to enter Tana, a port on the west
coast, where the Khasi of the place put them to death as they
would not embrace Islam; the feast of Blessed Thomas of Tolentino
and his companions is fixed on 6 April in the "Martyrologium
Romanum". Later Jordanus, hearing what had happened, rescued their
bodies and gave them burial. He must then have gone back to
Europe, for he is next heard of in France in 1330, when Pope John
XXII consecrated him at Avignon Bishop of Quilon. He left for the
East the same year with two letters from the pope, one to the
chief of the Christians of Quilon and the other to the Christians
at Molephatam, a town on the Gulf of Manaar. In the first the pope
beseeches "that divisions cease and clouds of error stain not the
brightness of faith of all generated by the waters of baptism . .
and that the phantom of schism and wilful blindness of unsullied
faith darken not the vision of those who believe in Christ and
adore His name."
Much the same in other words is repeated in the second letter, and
they are urged to unity with the Holy Catholic Roman Church. The
pope recommends the bishop to the kindness of the people, and
thanks them for that shown to the friars who are working among
them. All we know is that Bishop Jordanus was sent out with these
letters, but nothing further is heard of him. He wrote a small
book named "Mirabilia", edited by Col. A. Yule for the Hakluyt
Society, published in 1863 (see also "Cathay", I, 184). The next
visitor is Blessed Oderic of Pordenone, who about 1324-25 landed
at Tana, recovered the bodies of the four friars, Thomas and his
companions who had there suffered martyrdom, and conveyed them to
China. On his way he halted at Quilon, which he calls Palumbum;
thence he took passage on a Chinese junk for a certain city called
Zayton in China. He mentions the Christians at Quilon, and that at
Mylapore there were fourteen houses of Nestorians ("Cathay", I,
57). A few years later Giovanni de Marignolli, the papal delegate
to China, arrived at Quilon. He stayed there at a church dedicated
to St. George, belonging to the Latin Rite, and he adorned it with
fine paintings and taught there the Holy Law. After dwelling there
for upwards of a year he sailed to visit the shrine of the
Apostle; he calls the town Mirapolis. After describing the culture
of pepper on the coast he adds: "the pepper does not grow in
forests but in gardens prepared for the purpose; nor are the
Saracens the proprietors, but the Christians of St. Thomas, and
these are the masters of the public weighing-office" [customs
office]. Before leaving Quilon he erected a monument to
commemorate his visit, and this was a marble pillar with a stone
cross on it, intended to last, as he says, till the world's end.
"It had the pope's arms" he says, "and my own engraved on it, with
an inscription both in Indian and Latin characters. I consecrated
and blessed it in the presence of an infinite multitude of
people." The monument stood there till late in the nineteenth
century when by the gradual erosion of the coast it fell into the
sea and disappeared. He concludes his narrative by saying that
after staying a year and four months he took leave of the
brethren, i.e. the missionaries who were working in that field.
XII. Their two last Syrian bishops
The two last Syrian bishops were Mar Joseph Sulaka and Mar
Abraham; both arrived in Malabar after the arrival of the
Portuguese. Their case presents two questions for discussion; were
they canonically appointed, and had they completely rejected
Nestorianism? As to the first there is no doubt that his
appointment was canonical, for he, the brother of the first
Chaldean patriarch, was appointed by his successor Abed Jesu and
sent out to Malabar, and both the above patriarchs had their
jurisdiction over the Church in Malabar confirmed by the Holy See.
Mar Joseph was sent to India with letters of introduction from the
pope to the Portuguese authorities; he was besides accompanied by
Bishop Ambrose, a Dominican and papal commissary to the first
patriarch, by his socius Father Anthony, and by Mar Elias Hormaz,
Archbishop of Diarbekir. They arrived at Goa about 1563, and were
detained at Goa for eighteen months before being allowed to enter
the diocese. Proceeding to Cochin they lost Bishop Ambrose; the
others travelled through Malabar for two and a half years on foot,
visiting every church and detached settlement. By the time they
arrived at Angamale war broke out. Then Mar Elias, Anthony the
socius of the deceased prelate, and one of the two Syrian monks
who had accompanied them, left India to return; the other monk
remained with Archbishop Joseph Sulaka. For some time the new
prelate got on well with the Portuguese and Jesuit missionaries,
in fact, they praised him for having introduced order, decorum,
and propriety in the Church services and all went harmoniously for
some time. Later, friction arose because of his hindering the
locally-ordained Syrians from saying mass and preaching and
instructing his flock. Eventually an incident revealed that Mar
Joseph had not dropped his Nestorian errors, for it was reported
to the Bishop of Cochin that he had attempted to tamper with the
faith of some young boys in his service belonging to the Diocese
of Cochin. This came to the knowledge of the bishop, through him
to the Metropolitan of Goa, then to the viceroy; it was decided to
remove and send him to Portugal, to be dealt with by the Holy See.
The following is the nature of the incident. Taking these youths
apart, he instructed them that they should venerate the Blessed
Virgin as the refuge of sinners, but were not to call her Mother
of God, as that was not true; but she should be styled Mother of
Christ (Nestorius, refusing at the Council of Ephesus the term
Theotokos proposed by the council, substituted that of Christokos,
which the Fathers refused to accept because under this designation
he could cloak his error of two person in Christ). Mar Joseph was
sent to Portugal; arriving there he succeeded in securing the good
will of the Queen, then regent for her young son; he abjured his
error before Cardinal Henry, expressed repentance, and by order of
the queen was sent back to his diocese. Gouvea tells us that as he
continued to propagate his errors on his return he was again
deported and Cardinal Henry reported his case to St. Pius V. The
pope sent a Brief to Jorge, Archbishop of Goa, dated 15 Jan.,
1567, ordering him to make enqueries into the conduct and doctrine
of the prelate; in consequence of this the first provincial
council was held; the charges against Mar Joseph were found to be
true and he was sent to Portugal in 1568, thence to Rome, where he
died shortly after his arrival.
While the former was leaving India there arrived from Mesopotemia
an imposter named Abraham, sent by Simeon the Nestorian Patriarch.
he succeeded in entering Malabar undetected. At the appearence of
another Chaldean who proclaimed himself a bishop the people were
greatly delighted and received him with applause; he set about at
once acting as bishop, holding episcopal functions, and conferring
Holy orders and quietly established himself in the diocese.
(Gouva, p. col. 2). Later the Portuguese captured him and sent him
to Portugual, but en route he escaped at Mozambique, found his way
back to Mesopotamia, and went straight to Mar Abed Jesu the
Chaldean Patriarch, having realized from his Indian experience
that unless he secured a nomination from him it would be difficult
to establish himself in Malabar. He succeeded admirably in his
devices, obtained nomination, consecration, and a letter to the
pope from the patriarch. With this he proceeded to Rome, and while
there at an audience with the pope he disclosed his true position
(Du Jarric, "Rer. Ind. Thesaur.", tom. III, lib. II, p. 69). He
avowed to pope with his own lips that he had received holy orders
invalidly. The pope ordered the Bishop of San Severino to give him
orders from tonsure to the priesthood, and a Brief was sent to the
Patriarch of Venice to consecrate Abraham the bishop. The facts
were attested, both as to the lesser orders and the episcopal
consecration, by the original letters which were found in the
archieves of the Church of Angamale where he resided and where he
had died.
Pope Pius IV used great tact in handling this case. Abed Jesu must
have taken Abraham to be a priest; he is supposed to have abjured
Nestorianism, and professed the Catholic faith, and conferred on
him episcopal consecration; the pope had to consider the position
in which the patriarch had been placed by the consecration and
nomination of the man; the defects were supplied, and Abraham
succeeded also in obtaining his nomination and creation as
Archbishop Angamale from the pope, with letters to the Archbishop
of Goa, and to the Bishop Cochin dated 27 Feb., 1565. Such was the
success of this daring man. On arrival at Goa he was detained in a
convent, but escaped and entered Malabar. His arrival was a
surprise and a joy to the people. He kept out of the reach of the
Portuguese, living among the churches in the hilly parts of the
country. As time passed on he was left in peaceful occupation. As
is usual in such cases the old tendencies assumed once more their
ascendency, and he returned to his Nestorian teaching and
practices, Complaints were made; Rome sent warnings to Abraham to
allow catholic doctrine to be preached and taught to his people.
At one time he took the warning seriously to his heart. In 1583
Father Valignano, then Superior of the Jesuit Missions, devised a
means of forcing a reform. He persuaded Mar Abraham to assemble a
synod, and to convene the clergy and the chiefs of the laity. He
also prepared a profession of faith which was to be made publicly
by the bishop and all present. Moreover, urgent reforms were
sanctioned and agreed to. A letter was sent by Pope Gregory XIII,
28 Nov., 1578, laying down what Abraham had to do for the
improvement of his diocese; after the above-mentioned synod
Abraham sent a long letter to the pope in reply, specifying all
that he had been able to do by the aid of the Fathers (see letter,
pp. 97-99, in Giamil). This is called the first reconciliation of
the Syrians to the Church. It was formal and public, but left no
improvement on the general body, the liturgical books were not
corrected nor was catholic teaching introduced in the Church.
In 1595 Mar Abraham fell dangerously ill (Du Jarric,
tom,I,lib.II,p.614). Unfortunately he survived the excellent
sentiments he then had and recovered. After about two years, in
1597 (Gouva, p.ii) he was a second time again dangerously ill;
Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes wrote and exhorted him to reform his
people, but for answer he had only frivilous excuses. He would not
even avail himself of the exhortations of the Fathers who
surrounded his bed, nor did he receive the last sacraments. Thus
he died. The viceroy made known his death to Archbishop Menezes,
then absent on a visitation tour, by letter of 6 Feb., 1597.
XIII. Archbishop Menezes and the Synod of Diamper
Archbishop Menezes received the intelligence of the death of Mar
Abraham while on a tour of pastoral visitation at Damao. Fearing
the work on hand could not be postponed, he decided to act on the
powers delegated to him by pope in his last Brief, and nominated
Father Francisco Roz of the Society of Jesus who undoubtly
fulfilled the requirements demanded by the pope for the
appointment. On receipt of the letter and the instructions
accompanying it, the superior, knowing that the late Abraham
before his death had assigned to his archdeacon the government of
the church pending the arrival of another bishop from Babylon, and
the same had been accepted by the people, and foreseeing also the
insecurity of the position, decided that it would be prudent to
await the return of the archbishop before taking any further step.
The Archbishop on returning to Goa weighed the gravity of the
case, and felt bound in conscience to safeguard the Syrian
christians from falling again into the hands of a new heretical
intruder. He decided on visiting the Serra personally. Father
Nichol�o Pimenta, then the Superior of Jesuit missions in India,
writing the General of the Society, Father Claudius Acquaviva,
takes up the narrative as follows; "It was not small comfort to
all that Alexious Menezes, the Lord Archbishop of Goa, moved by
his zeal for salvation of souls and at our persuation undertook to
visit the ancient Christians of St. Thomas, spread through the
hilly parts of Malabar. There was great danger that after the
death of Archbishop Abraham at Angamale, and the succession of the
Archdeacon George to the government of the church on the demise of
the prelate, she would lapse again under the sway of Nestorian
prelates; nor were there wanting persons of ecclesiastical rank
possessed of means who proposed to procced to Babylon and bring
thence another Archbishop. To the Archbishop of Goa not only by
metropolitan right, but also in virtue of Apostolic letters
appertained the right to assume the administration of that Church
sede vacante; and he took upon himself the task of retaining the
vacillating archdeacon in due submission to the holy See and
avoiding schism."
He therefore issued instructions to the rector of the Vaipicotta
College, enclosing a letter of appointment naming the archdeacon
administrator of the diocese provided he in the presence of the
rector made a solemn profession of faith. The archdeacon expressed
his satisfaction on receiving the intimation and promised to make
the profession demanded on a feast day. But later on he would
neither make the profession, nor would he accept the nomination of
administrator as coming from the archbishop of the diocese.
Afterwards he caused it to be reported that he had so acted on the
advice of others. The Archbishop of Goa, after taking counsel with
the Fathers, decided on starting on the visitation of the
Archdiocese of Angamale to induce that Church to receive a prelate
from the Sovereign Pontiff. On this coming to be known all sorts
of difficulties were raised to induce him to abandon his project,
even from ecclesiastics, with such pertinacity that the archbishop
wrote to Pimenta: "Heaven and earth have conspired against my
design." But he manfully faced the work before him, and went
through it with singular firmness of character and prudence, and
supported by Divine aid he began, continued,and completed the
arduous task he had undertaken with complete success.
During the visitation (full details of which are given by Gouvea
in the "Jornada", the one source whence all other writers have
obtained their information, some even going so far as entirely to
distort the facts to satisfy their prejudice) the archbishop
underwent all sorts of hardships, visiting the principal parishes,
addressing the people, holding services, and everywhere conferring
the sacraments, of which these people were deprived. He caused the
Nestorian books in the possession of the churches and in the hands
of the people to be expurgated of their errors, and they were then
restored to their owners. All the books then existing among the
Syrians were in MS. form; printed books among them did not exist
at this period. Passages that denied the Supreme authority of the
Apostolic See of Rome were similarly deleted. He also caused
capable priests to be sought out, and these he placed in charge of
parishes. Eventually he established eighty parishes. Thus he
prepared his ground for the reform of this Church which he
intended to carry out. The synod was opened with great solemnity
and pomp on 20 June, 1599, at the village of Udiamparur, whence it
is known as the Synod of Diamper. The Acts were published in
Portuguese as an appendix to the "Jornada"; they were also
translated into Latin. The opening Act the synod was the
profession of faith. The Archbishop was the first to make his
profession, then followed the archdeacon who made in Malayalam, a
translation of the former prepared for the purpose. Subsequently
the clergy in turn made theirs in the hands of archbishop as the
archdeacon also had done. The Latin text of the synod , and
separate in "Juris Pontificii de Propaganda Fide", Paris. I, vol.
VI, part II, p. 243. Besides the archbishop and certain Jesuit
Fathers who assisted him there were some 153 Syrian priests and
about 600 laymen deputed by the congregation to represent them;
all these signed the decrees that were passed by the synod and
proclaimed the orthodox faith embodied in the act of profession
taken by the entire clergy. The Archbishop addressed the synod on
the falsity of the errors of Nestorius up till then held by that
Church, the assembly denounced them, anathematized the Nestorian
Patriarch, and promised obedience and submission to the Roman
Pontiff.
Among the calumnies spread against Menezes and the synod the most
prominent is that all the Syriac books of the community were burnt
and destroyed by order of the synod. What was done in this matter
under the decree passed in the fifth session is thus described in
the "Jornada" (tr. Glen, book I, ch. xxiii, p. 340). After the
above condemnation of errors it was decided that certain books
which had been named and were current in the serra and full of
errors should be burnt; that others were to be censured only until
they were corrected and expurgated. The list of books to be burnt
is given in the 14th decree of the third session. The books
consist:
* of those ex professo teaching Nestorian errors;
* containing false legends;
* books of sorceries and superstitious practices.
None of these were capable of correction. In all other books that
had any statements containing doctrinal errors, the latter were
erased. The "Jornada" (p. 365) gives the system adopted during the
visitation of the Church for the correction of books: after Mass
was said all books written in Syriac, whether the property of the
Church or of private individuals were handed over to Father
Francisco Roz, who with three Cathanars (Syrian priests) specially
selected for the purpose would retire to the vestry and there
correct the books in conformity with the directions given by the
synod ; those that were condemned and forbidden were handed over
to the archbishop, who would order them to be burnt publicly.
Under his orders no book capable of being purged from heretical
error would be destroyed, but those ex professo teaching heresy
would be destroyed. After the conclusion of the synod Archbishop
Menezes continued his visitation of the churches down to Quilon
and then returned to Goa. He did not forget to send from thence a
letter of warm thanks to Father Pimenta for the continuous and
important aid given by the Fathers of the Society all through the
work he had to perform in Malabar.
XIV. Their first three Jesuit bishops
In making provisions for the future government of the Syrian
Church in Malabar, Clement VIII had to adopt such measures as
would secure its permanency in the faith and exclude the danger of
a relapse. He decided that it would be the safest course to
appoint a Latin prelate in sympathy with the people and fully
acquainted with their liturgical language. The selection fell on
Father Roz, no doubt after hearing the opinion of Archbishop
Menezes. Father Roz was consecrated by the Archbishop at Goa under
the title of Bishop of Angamale in 1601. Four years later Paul V
transferred him (1605) to the new See of Cranganore, which he
created an archbishopric in order that the faithful brought to
unity should not feel that the honour of their see had suffered
any diminution of honour. The new prelate made a visitation tour
through the diocese, correcting the liturgical books at every
church where this had not been done, and enforcing everywhere the
rules sanctioned by the Synod of Diamper. In 1606 he convened and
held a diocesan synod; no further details of his administration
are handed down to us. After twenty-three years of strenuous
episcopate he died at Parur, his ordinary residence, 18 February,
1624, and was buried in the church. Besides the Latin Canon of the
Mass he had also translated the Latin ritual into Syriac for the
administration of the Holy Sacraments by the clergy. Years later,
on the occasion of the first pastoral visit of the first Vicar
Apostolic of Trichur to the church of Parur in 1888, on enquiring
after the tomb of the archbishop, was told that no tomb of his was
known to exist there, but after careful search had been made the
tombstone, with its Malayalam inscription in ancient Tamil
characters, was found and is now affixed to the inner wall of the
church. The loss of all knowledge of the tombstone was caused by
the sacking and burning of this church with many others by the
soldiers of Tippoo Sultan on his second invasion of the coast.
Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo, who had visited the church in 1785
and had taken a transcript of the inscription at the time, of
which he gives a Latin translation in his "India Christ. Orient.",
p. 64, did not read the name Roz on the stone, however the name is
there in a flaw of the stone and has been read on rediscovery.
Father Estev�o de Brito, also a Jesuit, was designated successor,
and was consecrated by the Archbishop of Goa in the Church of Bom
Jesus, Goa, on 29 Sept., 1624, and left Goa for his diocese on 4
November. He died on 2 December, 1641, having governed the see for
over seventeen years. The third of the series was Francisco
Garcia, of the same society. He was consecrated Bishop of Ascalon
on 1 November, 1637, with right of succession by the Archbishop of
Goa, in the Jesuit Church of Bom Jesus, Goa, and succeeded to the
See of Cranganore in 1641. Under this prelate a frightful schism
broke out (1653) and his entire flock, with all his clergy and
churches, withdrew from his allegiance. Out of the entire body of
200,000 Syrian Christians only some 400 individuals remained
faithful. This misfortune has by most writers been attributed to
Garcia's want of tact, obstinancy, and sarcastic disposition: as
to the latter defect there is one instance, and that at the last
opportunity for reconciliation, which fell through owing to his
harsh treatment of the delegates sent to him by his revolted
flock. But he was not responsible for the schism. This had been
hatched many years previously during the lifetime of his
predecessor de Brito, secretly and unknown to him. Here the dates
only of documents can be quoted. On 1 January, 1628 the Archdeacon
George wrote a letter to the papal nuncio at Lisbon complaining
that no answer was given to a letter sent some twenty years
earlier regarding the spiritual wants of this Christian people. In
1630 Rome was informed of these complaints, the substance of which
was that only Jesuits controlled these Christians, that they were
unsuited, and had controlled them for over forty years, and they
wanted other religious orders to be sent. The Sacred Congregation
sent instructions that other orders should be admitted into the
diocese.
Paulinus (op. cit., pp. 70 sq.) adduces further evidence of the
trickery and treachery of Archdeacon George. In 1632 he convened a
meeting at Rapolin consisting of clergy and laity, when a letter
of complaint was sent to the King of Portugal against the Jesuit
Fathers; these very same complaints formed the heads of their
grievances in 1653, when open schism was proclaimed to secure
independence and oust the Jesuits. The plot had been hatched for a
good number of years; it was begun by Archdeacon George (d. 1637)
who was succeeded in office by a relative, another Thomas de Campo
(Thoma Parambil) who in 1653 headed the revolt. After the schism
had broken out the intruder Ahatalla, a Mesopotamian prelate, was
deported by the Portuguese, who took him by ship off Cochin and
there lay at anchor. The Christians, coming to know of the fact,
threatened to storm the fort, which the governor had to man with
his soldiers, while the ship sailed away to Goa during the night.
The revolted seeing their last attempt to secure a Baghdad prelate
frustrated, leaders and people took a solemn vow that they would
never again submit to Archbishop Garcia. Finding themselves in
this position they thought of calling to their aid the Carmelite
Fathers who had visited Malabar but were then at Goa. When
Alexander VII came to know the calamity which had befallen the
Syrian community, he sent out (1656) the Carmelites, Fathers Jos�
de Sebastiani and Vincente of St. Catherine, to work for the
return to unity and to their archbishop of this revolted church.
Later other Carmelite Fathers joined in the good work. Within a
year of their arrival (1657) the Carmelites had succeeded in
reconciling forty-four churches. Although Archdeacon George had
remained obdurate, a relative of his, Chandy Perambil (Alexander
de Campo) headed the return movement, but they would have nothing
to do with Archbishop Garcia.
XV. The Carmelite Period
Under these circumstances Father Jos� de Sebastiani decided to
return to Rome and inform the pope of the real difficulty which
stood in the way of permanent reconciliation. The pope on learning
the state of the case had Father Jos� consecrated and appointed
him Commissary Apostolic for Malabar, with power to consecrate two
other bishops, naming them vicars Apostolic. Provided with these
powers he returned to Malabar in 1861 and took up his work. By
this time, Archbishop Garcia had been removed from the scene by
death. Between 1661 and 1662 the Carmelite Friars under Bishop
Jos� had reclaimed the large number of eighty-four churches,
leaving to the leader of the revolt -- the aforesaid Archdeacon
Thomas -- only thirty-two churches. Both these figures are of
great importance for the subsequent history of the Malabar
Syrians. The eighty-four churches and their congregations were the
body from which all the Romo-Syrians have descended, while the
other thirty-two represent the nucleus whence the Jacobites and
their subdivisions, Reformed Syrians, etc., have originated. In
January, 1663, the political situation regarding these Christians
was entirely changed. The Dutch had arrived on the coast and had
captured Cochin. The Portuguese power fell. The new masters
expelled not only all the Portuguese clergy but also forced Bishop
Jos� and his religious to leave the country. In this predicament
the bishop selected and consecrated the native priest Chandy
Perambil (Alexander de Campo) and made him a vicar Apostolic over
the flock he was forced to leave.
Before departing, however, he handed to the Dutch Government of
Cochin a list of the eighty-four churches that were under his
control and commended Bishop Chandy and the Christians of these
churches to his protection. This the governor undertook to fulfil.
Though the Dutch did not trouble themselves about the Syrian
Christians, yet they would not permit any Jesuit or Portuguese
prelate to reside in Malabar, although simultaneously with Bishop
Jos� de Sebastiani, the other Carmelite missionaries had also to
depart. However, they were not absent long, for eventually they
returned by ones and twos and were not molested. Later, in 1673,
they established themselves at Verapoly and built a church there,
having obtained the land rent-free from the Rajah of Cochin; it is
yet the headquarters of the Carmelites in Malabar. One of the
Carmelite fathers named Matthew even came into friendly relations
with the Dutch Governor van Rheede, and aided him in compiling his
voluminous work on local botany known as "Hortus Malabaricus." The
Carmelites working among the Syrians under Bishop Chandy remained
on good terms with him; the bishop died in 1676. Raphael, a priest
of the Cochin diocese, was selected to succeed the former, but he
turned out a failure and died in 1695." The year following, Father
Peter-Paul, a Carmelite, was created titular Archbishop of Ancyra,
and was appointed vicar Apostolic for Malabar. With his arrival in
1678 there was a considerable improvement in the relations between
the Dutch Government and the Carmelite Fathers. The Archbishop
Peter-Paul was a prince of the House of Parma, and his mother was
the sister of Pope Innocent XII; before coming out to Malabar he
had obtained a decree from the Government of Holland authorizing
the residence in Malabar of one bishop and twelve Carmelite
priests who had to be either Italians, Germans, or Belgians; but
they were not admitted into Cochin.
The French traveller Anquetil du Perron, who visited Malabar in
1758, offers the following statistics regarding the number of
Christians on the coast he had obtained from Bishop Florentius,
the Carmelite Vicar Apostolic of Malabar. He tells us that the
bishop believed the total number of Christians to amount to
200,000; of these 100,000 were Catholic Syrians, another 50,000
were of the Latin Rite ; both these were under his jurisdiction,
while the revolted Syrians who may be classed as Jacobites, were
under Mar Thomas VI (who on his consecration in 1772 assumed the
name and style of Dionysius I), and numbered 50,000. From the
death of Archbishop Garcia in 1659 the See of Cranganore had no
resident bishop till 1701, when Clement XI appointed Joao Rebeiro,
a Jesuit. When the latter assumed charge the Carmelite Vicar
Apostolic, Angelus Francis, told his Syrian flock that his
jurisdiction had ceased and they must now pass over to that of the
new Archbishop of Cranganore. The Syrians refused to acknowledge
the new archbishop and sent a petition to Rome that they preferred
to remain under the Carmelites, who had seventy-one churches in
complete submission and eighteen in partial union (i.e., the
parish was divided and part had submitted to Rome), while only
twenty-eight churches remained altogether separate. Pope Clement,
after informing the King of Portugal of the state of things,
extented in 1709 the jurisdiction of Bishop Angelus over the
dioceses of Cranganore and Cochin, and the pope assigned as a
reason for doing so that the Dutch would not tolerate any
Portuguese prelate in the country, and the Christians threatened
rather to reture to schism than accept the bishop sent out. For
fuller particulars of this period the reader is referred to: G. T.
Mackenzie, "History of Christianity in Travangore," in Census
Report of 1901, Trivandrum; and Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo,
"India Orientalis Christ" (Rome, 1794).
On the arrival of the Dutch and the capture of Cranganore it
became impossible for the Jesuits to retain the college at
Vipicotta; they abandoned the place and removing to the interior
beyond the reach of their enemies, opened a new college, at
Ambalacad, whence they controlled their new missions on the east
coast. Bishop Rebeiro returned there and carried on his work;
eventually several of the Syrian Catholic parishes went over to
the succeeding Archbishop of Cranganore, and these bishops
eventually lapsed under the control of the Archbishops of Goa.
Bishop Rebeiro died at the college of Ambalacad on 24 Sept., 1716,
is buried in the church of Puttencherra and has a tombstone with
an inscription in Portuguese. His successors fixed Puttencherra as
their residence, and the parish church became a pro-cathedral. The
following particulars of their nomination and death are here
recorded. Archbishop Rebeiro was succeded by Antonio Carvallo
Pimental also a Jesuit, consecrated as the former had been at the
church of Bom Jesus, Goa, by the archbishop on 29 Feb., 1722, d.
at Puttencherra on 6 March, 1752. Paulinus says of him: vir doctus
et Malabarensibus gratus, qui eum nomine Budhi Metran, sapientis
et eruditi praesulis compellebant." He has a tombstone with
inscription. Joao Luiz Vasconcellos, also a Jesuit, was
consecrated at Calicut by Bishop Clemente of Cochin in 1753 and d.
at Puttencherra in 1756; the church contains his tombstome with
inscription. Salvador Reis, the last of the series who resided in
India, was also a Jesuit; he was consecrated by the same Bishop
Clemente at Angengo on Feb., 1758, d. on 7 April, 1777, at
Puttencherra and has his tombstone with inscription in the same
church. Paulinus records of him "vir sanctimonia vitae
praeclarus", he survived the suppression of his order. This closes
the list of the bishops who have governed the See of Cranganore.
To complete the historical account of the Syrian Malabar Church,
brief mention should also be made of the line of prelates who
ruled over the schismatics who eventually became Jacobites,
embracing that error through their prelates: Thomas I, proclaimed
a bishop by those he had led (1653) into the aforesaid schism
after the imposition of the hands of twelve priests his followers
and the placing on his head of a mitre and in his hand a pastoral
staff. He continued obdurate and died a sudden death in 1673.
Thomas II, brother of the former, proclaimed in 1674, died eight
days later struck by lighting. Thomas III, nephew of the former,
received the mitre in 1676, a Jacobite. Thomas IV of the family,
succeeded in 1676 and died in 1686, a Jacobite. Thomas V, a nephew
of the former, made every effort to obtain consecration but
failed, d. in 1717, a Jacobite. Thomas VI received the mitre from
his dying uncle and the imposition of hands of twelve priests. He
wrote to the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch to send bishops.
Eventually the Dutch authorities helped him and obtained for him
three bishops, on condition of his defraying the expenses. Three
Jacobite bishops came out to India in 1751, Mar Basil, Mar
Gregory, and Mar John. The first named died a year after arrival;
the second years later consecrated Mar Thomas VI a bishop in 1772,
and he assumed the name of Dionysius I. The Dutch authorities
found great difficulty in obtaining payment for the expenses
incurred; a suit was instituted against the Jacobites in the
Travancore Rajah's court in 1775 and payment of the amount twelve
thousand pounds, was obtained. He died in 1808.
For the long period between 1678 and 1886, the Catholic Syrians
remained under the uninterrupted control of about fifteen
Carmelite Bishops as vicars Apostolic. During this period there
had often arisen severe troubles which cannot here be detailed,
quarrels between Syrian and Latin Christians, agitation against
the control of some bishops; over and above these the ordinary
trials of controlling such a large, factious, and difficult body.
There had also been two most serious schismatical intrusions
within this Syrian fold by Catholic Chaldean prelates who had come
from Mesopotamia with the full connivance of the Chaldean
Patriarch and against the express orders of the Roman Pontiff. The
Carmelite had to face and surmount all these difficulties and the
keep the flock in due submission to ecclesiastical regime. Of the
two instrusions, the first was that of the Chaldean Bishop Mar
Roccos, who entered Malabar in 1861. Pius IX denounced him to the
faithful as an intruder, yet he met with a complacent reception in
many of the churches, succeeded in stirring up the dormant hydra
of schism, and caused a great agitation. Fortunately for the peace
of the Church he was persuaded to return to Mesopotamia within the
year. The second, who came to Malabar in 1874, caused much greater
harm, the evil effects of which seem to be permanent in the
principal church of Trichur, though elsewhere in process of time
those evil effects have been remedied. This was the Bishop Mellus,
whom the patriarch had sent over in spite of the strict
prohibition of the same pope. It was only when after repeated
admonitions , the pope had fixed a limit of the time after which
should he continue refractory he would be excommunicated, that he
yielded and sent Bishop Mellus instructions to return. When the
troublesome character of these people is taken into consideration
it reflects great credit on the carmelite Order that the bishops
in charge were successful in retaining them as a body in the unity
of Holy Church.
XVI. Two Latin Vicars Apostolic
The Mellusian schism, though broken by the adverse judgments of
the Madras High Court, was by no means yet extinct when in the
autumn of 1878 the Holy See decided on placing the Syrian
Christians under separate administration, appointing two vicars
Apostolic of the Latin Rite for the purpose. These were Rev. A.E.
Medlycott, Ph.D., Military Chaplain in the Punjab, educated in the
Propaganda College, Rome, and consecrated by the Apostolic
Delegate Mgr. A. Ajuti on 18 Dec., 1887, at Ootacamund, titular
Bishop of Tricomia, appointed to the Vicariate Apostolic of
Trichur; and the Rev. Charles Lavinge, S.J., former private
secretary of the late Father Beckx, General of the Society,
consecrated in Belgium before coming out, appointed to the See of
Kottayam, later called of Changanacherry. Under the Concordat of
Leo XIII with the King of Portugal an important advantage had been
gained by the suppression of the Padroado jurisdiction (Cranganore
Archbishops) over the Syrian churches. The first task the new
bishops had to face was to amalgamate in one harmonius whole the
two sections of this Church, that which had been under the
Carmelites with that which had belonged to the Goan or Padroado
jurisdiction, for the two had been for long years in open
antagonism. This union fortunately was successfully effected. The
other task was to establish something like a proper administration
and control over the churches. This took longer time. The northern
churches belonging to Trichur had not seen their prelates for
perhaps a century, the two Chaldean bishops had utilized the fact
to their own advantage, and the troubles caused by them in these
churches can easily be imagined; but with firmness and patience a
fair working administration was introduced.
The result may thus be briefly summed up. The Vicariate of Trichur
had a Catholic Syrian population of 108,422 with eighty-three
parish churches and twenty-two chapels-of-ease, served by 118
priests of Syrian Rite, besides 23 Syrian Carmelite Tertiary
monks, in two monasteries; there was also a convent of 24 native
Tertiary nuns with a middle-class school of 33 girls. The bishop
on taking charge found that there is practically no schools,
except that one provided for clerics; he took early steps to open
as many elementary parish schools as possible; within nine years
(1888-96) the vicariate was provided with no less than 231
elementary parish schools for both sexes, educating over 12,000
children, besides a high school (St. Thomas' College), with 95
students; there was also 56 boys in St. Aloysius's High School,
under the Tertiary monks. A catechumanate was opened, where
annually about 150 heathen converts were baptized; a fine building
was under construction for a suitable residence, and plans were
prepared to house the above college in a handsome structure. This
was the condition of things when the bishop went to Europe on sick
leave. The Vicariate of Kottayam had a Catholic population of
150,000, with 108 parish churches and 50 dependent chapels, served
by a numerous clergy of over 300 priests; it had 35 Tertiary monks
besides novices, in five monasteries; also three convents of
native Tertiary Carmelite nuns educating girls, two orphanages
under Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis, four catechumenates, two
seminaries, with 96 students. The higher class clerical students
of both vicariates attended the central Pontifical Seminary at
Puttenpally. The parochial schools numbered 200, but the number of
pupils was not published. There were three English Schools:
Mananam, 60; Campalam, 80; and another with 20 students.
In 1895 both vicars Apostolic happened to be absent on leave.
During this period the Holy See decided on a change of regime,
yielding to the wishes of the people to grant them native bishops.
XVII. Divided into three vicariates with native bishops
The two vicariates described above were split into three, and they
were styled Trichur, Ernaculam, Changanacherry; the new vicariate
was formed of the southern portion of Changanacherry. The changes
were carried out under Leo XIII by Brief of 28 July, 1896, "Quae
Rei Sacrae". Rev. John Menacherry, as Bishop of Paralus, was
appointed to Trichur. Rev. Aloysius Pareparampil, titular Bishop
of Tio, was appointed to Ernaculam, and Rev. Mathew Makil, Bishop
of Tralles, was appointed to Changanacherry; all three received
consecration from the Apostolic Delegate Mgr. Zaleski, at Kandy on
15 Oct., 1896.
At the time of these changes, the ecclesiastical returns of these
three vicariates (1911) gave:
* Trichur: Catholic population, 91,064; children being educated,
19,092;
* Ernaculam: Catholic population, 94,357; children being educated,
9950;
* Changanacherry: Catholic population, 134,791; children being
educated, 2844.
The future of this people depends very largely on education for
their welfare and technical training for their development.
Notes
ASSEMANI, Bibliotheca Orientalis (Rome, 1719-28); DE SOUZA,
Orientale Conquistado (2 vols., Indian reprint, Examiner Press,
Bombay); Gouvea, Jornada do Arcebispo Aleixo de Menezes quando foy
as Serra do Malaubar (Coimbra, 1606); Fr. tr. DE GLEN, Histoire
Orientale etc. (Brussels, 1609); DU JARRIC, Thesaurus rerum
mirabilium in India Orient (3 vols., Cologne, 1615); PAULINUS A
SANTO BARTHOLOMAEO, India Orientalis Christiana (Rome, 1794);
MACKENZIE, Christanity in Tranvancore, with Census Report of 1901
(Trevandrum); MEDLYCOTT, India and the Apostle St. Thomas (London,
1905).
A.E. MEDLYCOTT
Transcribed by Mary and Joseph P. Thomas
In memory of Kurien Poovathumkal
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc., P.O. Box 281096, Denver, Colorado, USA, 80228.
(
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