History of the Malankara Church in India

[coorilose]

While the majority of Christians in India owe their fellowship in Christ due to the influence of European colonialism starting in the 16th century, there is a small Christian community in the southern state called Kerala who claim to have existed from the 1st century having been converted by the Apostle Thomas. This community is called the "Malankara Church", the name Malankara being the name of the place where St. Thomas landed in 52 AD.

Today, this community consists of all the major denominations of the Christian Church, except Eastern Orthodoxy.

Denomination	Present in Malankara Community?
Catholic	Yes
Eastern Orthodox	No
Oriental Orthodox	Yes
Protestant	Yes
Assyrian Church/Church of the East	Yes

This is a thread which seeks explore the history of this church as well as its current state.

 

[coorilose]

Well, to be fair, the Church of the East, which the Indian Church was a part of, did expand far beyond Malankara, as far as Tibet and Mongolia in fact, stretching right across Central Asia to the Levant and down to Socotra in Yemen, and was actually geographically the largest Christian church, until in the 12th century the Muslim genocidal warlord Tamerlane* killed all of them outside of the Fertile Crescent and Malankara in one of the worst genocides in the past thousand years.

Now, that said, it is true that Nasranis were regarded as a privileged caste, and the ruling Hindus from what I have read liked to use them as a buffer to separate high caste Hindus from low cast Hindus and the bad juju/kharma/whatever superstitious nonsense that the cruel Caste system of Indian religions attached to different groups of people, despite their piety, and in fact still does. I recall an incident a few years ago where a Brahmin killed a lower caste boy through blunt force trauma on the head, who had entered a temple seeking candy, which was given to high caste children. The treatment of the Dalits is particularly horrible.

However I think it should be stressed that the Nasranis did not do that; they were neither the instigators nor the enforcers of the caste system, but rather, like the Kochin Jews and the Parsis, managed to obtain the status of a foreign religion which was tolerated, although not before an enraged Hindu maharaja impaled St. Thomas the Apostle with a javelin in Kerala in 53 AD.

By the way, I am, largely on the basis of Hindu cults tu Durga / Kali, convinced that the Septuagint reading of Psalm 95 v. 5 is correct vs. the equivalent Masoretic reading ( Psalms 96:5 ), that is to say, “The gods of the gentiles are demons” as opposed to “The gods of the gentiles are idols”, which, while true, is also obvious.

Oh no. The Nasranis never did such things as ill-treatment of the lower castes. But they did follow the strictest law in the caste system ie endogamy. Also, from what I have read in the Protestant missionary documents of the 19th century, they did very little or no evangelization, which means they did believe in the "pollution" from the lower castes.

If you are interested in reading those documents, search these words on the website archive.org :

1. CMS Church Missionary Register
2. Church Missionary Intelligencer
3. Church Missionary Gleaner
4. Church Missionary Atlas

Look for the name "Travancore" in the table of contents in these documents, as Travancore was the name of the state of Kerala during the British Empire.

 

[coorilose]

Yet are they not both (the Indian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox) in communion with the rest of the OO churches? I know that we in the Coptic Orthodox Church recognize both, though which one is mentioned in any given liturgy will vary based on who we have with us during a particular service (in the same way that we are not obligated to mention any given Patriarch outside of those with whom we have preexisting mutual agreements to do so, i.e., the Syriac Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox; as I understand it, the others are mentioned as is befitting in the presence of any Indian, Ethiopian, or Armenian brothers and sisters). I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly by this point, but I think the same was true with regard to the recently-healed Ethiopian schism, which by its method of resolution has shown that the 'mainstream' Ethiopians (i.e., not those of the 'Synod in Exile') recognize that those who were in schism from them had a point (it was a very politicized situation somewhat similar to ROCOR vs. the Russian Orthodox situation, if that helps any Chalcedonians reading this: a patriarch had been elevated during a period of great political upheaval, and the resulting enthronement was protested by those who felt that this situation had been tainted by the political actors of the day, and that someone else was the rightful patriarch). Maybe such a thing is not possible among the Indians (Lord have mercy!), but either way, it seems that we in the Coptic Orthodox Church at least are hesitant to take sides in administratively-based conflicts (whereas we have definitely done so concerning heresies, as when the RC heresy of the Immaculate Conception re-emerged as a favorite pet heresy of some in one of the Ethiopian parishes in the USA a few years ago, which led to the local Coptic Orthodox bishop of whichever diocese this was in stepping in at the congregation's own request to provide correction to both the laity and the errant leader! Oof!).

These sorts of things have happened over time, of course. The Syriac Orthodox and the Armenians were in schism over some of the Armenians' unique eucharistic practices for a few centuries, if I recall correctly (this is the context in which Mor Dionysius Bar Salibi wrote his infamous Against the Armenians), and less lengthy periods of estrangement existed for some time between the Copts and the Syriacs (see Lucas Van Rompay's work on Mor Severus in the Greek, Syriac, and Coptic traditions in the Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies Vol. 8, 2008), and surely others. Please correct me if I'm wrong, my friend, but it is my understanding that the current schism between the Indian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox in India arose sometime in the last five decades or so, so it has been within the span of a normal human lifetime, even if its antecedents may obviously stretch back some time longer. We pray that it not continue, and that the parties be reconciled to one another, whether it results in a dual-patriarch situation (like the Ethiopians now have) or in some other arrangement. Again, Lord have mercy.

As far as I know, they are in communion with all OO churches except the Syriac Orthodox Church.

The schism began in the late 19th century, culminating in the establishment of the Catholicate of the Indian Orthodox Church in 1912. There was a period of oneness from 1958 to 1975.

 

[FireDragon76]

There's actually a small Mar Thoma church here in the Orlando area, near where I used to live out in Oviedo. The Mar Thoma church is an Anglican-influenced "reformation" of the Malankara Orthodox, started in the 19th century. Worship is a mixture of traditional Malankara Orthodox and Anglican influences.

 

[coorilose]

There's actually a small Mar Thoma church here in the Orlando area, near where I used to live out in Oviedo. The Mar Thoma church is an Anglican-influenced "reformation" of the Malankara Orthodox, started in the 19th century. Worship is a mixture of traditional Malankara Orthodox and Anglican influences.

A lot of them have migrated to developed countries like Australia, UK, USA etc. You can find Malankara churches in all these countries.

 

[dzheremi]

As far as I know, they are in communion with all OO churches except the Syriac Orthodox Church.

The schism began in the late 19th century, culminating in the establishment of the Catholicate of the Indian Orthodox Church in 1912. There was a period of oneness from 1958 to 1975.

Ah, thank you for this information. I think I confused the end of the period of oneness that you mention here for the beginning of the schism, probably due to my own misreading of Indian authors. I appreciate your correction, and the rest of the information you have shared in this thread.

 

[coorilose]

From the "The Church Missionary Atlas" (1865):

The Church Missionary Atlas Maps Of The Various Missions : Church Missionary Society : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Book digitized by Google from the library of Oxford University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

archive.org

 

[AbbaLove]

While the majority of Christians in India owe their fellowship in Christ due to the influence of European colonialism starting in the 16th century, there is a small Christian community in the southern state called Kerala who claim to have existed from the 1st century having been converted by the Apostle Thomas. This community is called the "Malankara Church", the name Malankara being the name of the place where St. Thomas landed in 52 AD.

Today, this community consists of all the major denominations of the Christian Church, except Eastern Orthodoxy.

Denomination	Present in Malankara Community?
Catholic	Yes
Eastern Orthodox	No
Oriental Orthodox	Yes
Protestant	Yes
Assyrian Church/Church of the East	Yes

Would have expected Eastern Orthodox to also have representation today. Wasn't EO at one time of significance in Kerla?
Is there one Protestant denomination that is most represented within the Christian community in the southern state of Kerla?

 

[dzheremi]

Why would you assume that the EO would be present there in any appreciable number? India has long been within the Syriac sphere of influence, and the geographically closest EO Syriac speakers historically would have probably been the community around the Holy Land who spoke Christian Palestinian Aramaic (a.k.a. Melkite Aramaic), largely lost it in favor of Arabic by the 14th century (which is notably before things like the Coonan Cross Oath, by which a section of the Indians publicly repudiated the Portuguese Chalcedonians' attempts to control the Indian Church), and at any rate were almost 3,000 miles away from India (Google says 4,504 km ~ 2,798 mi). Not exactly an easy journey to make, especially before the modern era.

Believe it or not, despite their constant attempts to monopolize Orthodoxy as being 'their thing' around the world since 451 until today, and probably forever after that until our Savior returns, there are still places on this planet where the Eastern Chalcedonians who refer to their churches as 'Orthodox'* are virtually absent -- and I don't mean by that only places where Christians more generally are virtually absent. I don't know about the stats concerning India in particular, but I know that in the homeland of the largest single Oriental Orthodox Church, Ethiopia, the Greek community which does still exist there has fallen from a height of perhaps 6,000 people to about 500 today. This is not due to a lack of good relations between the Greeks and the Ethiopians, or a lack of shared history, as you can read about by clicking the link. There simply aren't very many there. A similar point can be made about the 'Greeks' in Egypt, who I put in quotes because I know from personal friends who live in that most Greek of satellite cities, Alexandria, that even in their numerical and historical stronghold, the members of the Greek Church in Egypt are mostly not ethnic Greeks, and the number of ethnic Greeks there is very low (I don't have exact numbers, but if I recall correctly, it is somewhere in the low thousands and getting lower with each passing year; the number of EO Christians in Egypt is estimated at about 300K, which is dwarfed by the number of members of this Church in Africa outside of Egypt's borders -- some 1.5 million). Just to put those numbers in perspective, Ethiopia was estimated to have a population of around 120 million in the most recent census I could find (2021), and Egypt is estimated to have a population of 109 million today, and its most Christian cities are mostly quite far away from Alexandria, at the opposite end of the country (in 'Upper Egypt', since the geographic orientation of the country follows the flow of the Nile).

* Phrasing it this way is not an attempt to be snotty towards them, but to try to disentangle them in particular from the various Eastern Catholic uniate churches that are also present in Oriental Orthodox countries, and of course are also Chalcedonian in their Christology, just as the EO themselves are. There are, after all, a considerable number of Eastern Catholics in India, for instance. The Syro-Malabar Catholics apparently number some 2.5 million in Kerala, according to a census conducted in the state in 2016. If I'm not mistaken, this is a larger population than belongs to either of the Orthodox churches native to India. (At least inside the country; I'm not sure if that holds around the world.)

 

[coorilose]

Would have expected Eastern Orthodox to also have representation today. Wasn't EO at one time of significance in Kerla?
Is there one Protestant denomination that is most represented within the Christian community in the southern state of Kerla?

Nope.

There are two Protestant denominations that are well known there:
1. Mar Thoma Syrian Church
2. Church of South India

 

[Bob Crowley]

There is a Syro-Malabar Catholic Church not far from us.

There is also what appears to be a Malankara Orthodox Church some distance away.

https://www.sgioc.org.au/

Indians are becoming an increasing feature in our Australian migration statistics.

I passed a Hindu Temple on my way to mass tonight and there's a Sikh Temple about 20 kilometres away.

 

[FireDragon76]

From the "The Church Missionary Atlas" (1865):

View attachment 329208

The Church Missionary Atlas Maps Of The Various Missions : Church Missionary Society : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Book digitized by Google from the library of Oxford University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

archive.org

Ah yes... white, European, Protestant chauvenism at it's finest, to dismiss any other expression of Christianity as "superstition". Jesus pronounced woe to the Pharisees about sending missionaries far and wide to win a proselyte to make them twice the son of Hell, and I think this is reflected as well in the attitudes of the Protestant missionaries in south India.

 

[coorilose]

Rev. Fr. Michael Hatcher - probably the only non-Indian priest of the Malankara Orthodox Syriac Church

Fig Tree - St. Gregorios Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church celebrates 35 years

His parish website: ST.GREGORIOS ORTHODOX CHURCH SPOKANE, WA

Facebook: St Gregorios Malankara Orthodox Church - Spokane, WA

 

[The Liturgist]

There's actually a small Mar Thoma church here in the Orlando area, near where I used to live out in Oviedo. The Mar Thoma church is an Anglican-influenced "reformation" of the Malankara Orthodox, started in the 19th century. Worship is a mixture of traditional Malankara Orthodox and Anglican influences.

Indeed, and the formation of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church was facilitated by the British East India Company refusing to release gold coins or bullion that the Syriac Orthodox Church had deposited with it in good faith, except to one particular bishop who pledged to “reform” the Syriac church in India.

So it was basically financed by embezzlement conducted by a conspiracy of the British East India Company and the founding bishop. It is also one of only a handful of Protestant churches to pop up on the boundaries of an Orthodox church (the Ukrainian Lutheran Church and the Georgian Evangelical Baptist Church come to mind).

 

[The Liturgist]

Rev. Fr. Michael Hatcher - probably the only non-Indian priest of the Malankara Orthodox Syriac Church

Fig Tree - St. Gregorios Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church celebrates 35 years

His parish website: ST.GREGORIOS ORTHODOX CHURCH SPOKANE, WA

Facebook: St Gregorios Malankara Orthodox Church - Spokane, WA

I’ve heard that non-Indians can serve in the Jacobite Church (the Indian part of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch). I have also heard, but there seems strong reason to doubt this, for example, the recent joining of the Guatemalan church to the Syriac Orthodox Church, that one needs Syriac Orthodox grandparents to become a priest.

I know of at least three Coptic Orthodox priests who are converts, Fr. Peter Farrington in the UK and Fr. Bishoy in California, and of course the Anchorite hermit Fr. Lazarus el Antony, originally from Australia, who now lives in the hills above St. Anthony’s Monastery in Egypt.