PREFACE

Amongst all the dioceses and missions of India, none has a more interesting and more dramatic history than the Church of Malabar.. Its apostolic antiquity, its period of obscurity when it was materially, but not formally, cut off from the Church of Rome, the vain attempts made by dissident Churches to introduce their erroneous doctrines into it, the mistaken views of the Portuguese authorities as regards Malabarian rites and customs, the natural and totally justified wish of those Christians to be governed by prelates of their own rite, and as far as possible of their own nationality, and the modern exuberant growth of that Church, are only a few points, the narrative of which is of absorbing interest in the history of the Universal Church.

Unfortunately, the history of the Malabarian Church has been, for long, one-sided, not only on account of the fact that not all available documents have ever been consulted, but also because of the preconceived ideas of many a historian when narrating the events grouping round the Synod of Udayamperur. Even Pastor himself, the great historian of the Popes, did not discover truth in the midst of false statements of contemporary writers and and posterior historians.

Two priests of that glorious Church, the Rt. Rev. Mgr. J.C. Panjikaran (1914) and Rev. Fr. Bernard of St. Thomas, T.O. C.D. (1916, 1921, 1924) were the first to oppose that ordinary one-sided view, with historical documents, that prove the orthodoxy of the faith of the Malabr Church at all times. Rev. Fr. Placid of St. Joseph, T.O.C.D. is following their steps, when he published the critical studies on the Sources of the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Syro-Malankarian Church (1937) and now in this publication on the The Syrian Church of Malabar.

Mgr. Giuseppe Beltrami in Europe has also taken the same bold stand in his thesis on La Chiesa Caldea nel secolo dell' unione (1933). Thus the great problems one comes across in the course of the history of the Malabar Church are viewed from another stand-point, which is not on account of its newness less true than the other. For history is not built all of a sudden but by the succession of brick after brick and of layer after layer.

Many documents referring to the Syro-Malabar Church still lie silent in libraries and archives. The present writer has tried to make some of them speak, not always to the satisfaction of everybody. Men have virtues and defects. History therefore must have bright and dark pages. If all were bright, history would not be history, but a eulogy.

This little work of Fr. Placid also has its bright and dark spots. Let the former enlighten its readers; Let the latter reveal the pitfalls of the past, so that we may avoid them in the future. Thus history will truly be, according to the definition of the great Roman orator, Magistra vitae, "the Teacher of Life".

Shembaganur,

26th May, 1938 H. HERAS, S.J.

Director,

Indian Historical Research Institute,

Bombay.

The Syrian Church of Malabar

Its Catholic Communion

INTRODUCTION

The Catholic Religion teaches that the Pope of Rome is the successor of St. Peter, on whom Christ the Godman built His Church,¹and as such he is the supreme Pastor² who is to confirm his brethren ³ and to whom all must be subject, irrespective of political, racial, social, cultural, regional or ritual differences. Obedience to the Pope is the necessary condition of Catholic Communion, the rejection of which makes one similar to a heathen and a publican.⁴ But no one can be forced against his will to become a member of the Catholic Church.⁵

The doctrine of Papal supremacy is not to be confounded with its use. That the Pope is supreme and that every one must acknowledge and be subject to his supreme jurisdiction, are doctrines that will in no way, undergo any change. But the mode in which this supremacy is used or exercised may differ according to time and circumstances. We may consider a parallel case in the State. The administration of certain departments, roads, post, railways are entrusted to, or taken away from, the municipal authority by the central government. This is a matter of arrangement and convenience. We may or may not prefer the power of the municipalities. In any case we have to take the arrangements as they are; nor does this affect our loyalty towards our country.

In the primitive centuries and afterwards, owing to difficulty of communication arising especially from geographical and political reasons, local Christian Communities or Churches enjoyed a kind of autonomy, and had a canon law of their own. Only major questions were referred to Rome which in the case of certain remote Churches were to be dropped because of adverse circumstances. Their communion with Rome, in most cases, could consist only in their conviction that they were under the Pope. If they often - times gave expression to this belief, then it was a clear indication, that they were staunch Catholics, though they never approached Rome, because of the special environments in which they were placed.

No doubt, this kind of estrangement from the centre of Catholicity was often the cause of errors or heresies creeping into remote Churches without their noticing them. But such errors were harmless theological mistakes, that could not infringe the unity of faith, as long as they were not adhered to by a rejection of Rome's rulings and definitions.⁶ Thus it was quite possible that remote local churches could embrace heretical doctrines and practices without being non-Catholic i.e., without losing Catholic Communion. But in order to be Catholic, the readiness to receive any correction from Rome was absolutely necessary in those Churches.

Now-a-days, conditions are changed. There has been a constant process of centralising of the Papal Supremacy. Conditions, therefore, that were not necessary for Catholic Communion in the primitive centuries and afterwards, are seen to-day necessary for the same. For, as we said above about the State, we have to take the arrangements as they are. It will therefore be misleading to measure the past with the standard of the present. We cannot say for certain that a certain local Church had no Catholic Communion then, unless we prove that she had not acknowledged the Papacy or had rejected it after acknowledging it. Heretical doctrines found in a local church could not of themselves argue her estrangement from Rome. For, it was possible that heresy- material heresy, of course-and Catholic Communion could co-exist in a local Church situated far away from Rome.

We are here treating of the Catholic Syrian Church of Malabar, the greater part of which is included in the modern State of Travancore. Leaving aside all the other aspects of the question, we intend stressing specially on the epithet Catholic. A Church is Catholic because of her Communion with the Pope of Rome, and Syrian, or Greek or Latin, because of her Rite. Rites are nothing but different modes of expressing the same faith under the same head, often in different languages.................

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