How early Indian Christians evolved under Syrian Partriarchates
Christianity in Malabar Coast is Pre-Nestorian, Pre-Latin and as old as Judean — Part II
This is a Three-Part Series. What you are reading is Part II. Click Here for Part I and here for Part III.
In the first part, you have gone through the origin of Christianity and how Saint Thomas got into Malabar Coast. A brief note about Liturgy and languages was also discussed. In this part, we will go through the era of divisions. But first, some context and history before we go further.
Five Partriarchates
I am sure you all know Anno Domini (AD) and Before Christ (BC). We will be delving here into AD only which means the period after Jesus Christ. Christianity spread after the death of Jesus Christ. By the end of the third century, the Roman Empire was fully immersed in Christianity. In 325 AD, the first Council was summoned by Roman Emperor Constantine I to administer the Christian world. It was held in Nicaea, now in Istanbul, and is known as the first council of Nicaea.
The entire Christian Community across the world was broadly formed as three distinct groups and each group came under the authority of the three Patriarchates then in existence, namely Rome, Alexandria and Antioch.
The current South Indian geographical region was under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Antioch widely believed to be around the third century. Two more Patriarchates were added later. Constantinople was added in the fourth century and Jerusalem in the fifth century.
Patriarchate is an ecclesiological term in Christianity earmarking jurisdictions. To know the early origins of the power centers, please go deep into the Byzantium Empire and Ottoman Empires. Since they are not part of our focus here, I am skipping them. When you read further, knowing these five Patriarchates will come in handy. Also, remember that at that time Palestine and Jerusalem were part of Syria.
Biblical references to the spread of Christianity in the Middle East can be traced. “Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year, they met with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians.” This is Acts 11:25–26 which is self-explanatory to understand the importance of Antioch.
Since there were no supersonic jets during those times, the Kerala Christians couldn’t travel to Antioch, their jurisdictional headquarters, and receive ordinations as priests or bishops and then come back in time to serve enough. So, an archbishop was appointed as administrator, who was called Catholicose of the East, in the early nineteenth century to administer areas east to the Persian Empire which included what is India now.
Malabar Christians
To get an idea of the early Christians in India, one must get an idea of who they were and what they followed. The Brahmin conversion theory is a bluff that Kerala Christians have been fed for centuries since there were no Brahmins there till the twelfth century. You can read in detail about the alternate theory here.
So, the Kerala Christians were more influenced by the external collaborations they had with the visiting foreigners who were mostly from Persia or Constantinople. A council of Mar Isaac was held at Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Sassanid Empire in the fourth century. This was where the Syriac Orthodox Church (Not to be confused with the Church of the East) was born.
It is now more commonly called Suriyani Sabha in Kerala or Orthodox Church which now prevails in India, Russia, and many regions. Almost a century later, it gained hierarchical distinctiveness after a lot of power struggles within the empire and within the church (the Greek Orthodox Church, Coptic Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church, Indian Orthodox Church, etc. were formed during subsequent power struggles.)
Let’s go year by year.
AD 52 to AD 1599: United Christians or Nazranis on the Malabar coast
All followers of Jesus in the southwestern Malabar coast were called Nazranis, as followers of the Nazarene in its earlier avatars. They were united. Without any ecclesiastical assistance, the Nazranis were spiritually guided by regular priests and leaders sent by the Patriarchate of Antioch and partially by the Chaldean Patriarchate of Baghdad who did not interfere in the day-to-day administrative matters.
The early existence of Nazranis almost went unnoticed by the world (especially by the Romans) for many years since it was an indigenous group. But as news reached Rome, Pope Nicholas IV sent John of Montecorvino (Giovanni da Montecorvino), a Franciscan monk, around 1289 to the Middle East and China. He went back with the news about the traditions and style followed in these regions which included the Malabar coast as he happened to pass through the region. After him, around 1323, Jordanus Catalani, a Catalan-Dominican missionary, was the next. John De Marignolli succeeded him, and he established a base in Kollam which flourished with many more arrivals.
The spiritual leaders (priests-kathanars) were led by a chief priest (archbishop in today’s parlance) and their convention was called Palli Yogam which was held regularly. It all went smoothly with little hiccups until the 1599 synod of Udayamperoor. Let us see why this synod changed the course of Christianity in Kerala and why it was held at Udayamperoor.
1599: Synod of Udayamperoor
There is a mention of the Villarvattom dynasty in the Travancore State Manual and a lot of relevant folklore is associated with this dynasty. It is located at Udayamperoor near Cochin and was then a vassal of the Chera kings (whose rule ended somewhere in the 12th century).
The ruler of this province was known as Raja Thoma Villarvattam and the Thoma kingdom continued well into the 15th century. A church built in AD 510 — which may have gone through repairs subsequently, as the current building materials are not entirely of the 4th century — still stands there.
Basically, in Malayalam, it was translated to Nasranikalude Rajavu or King of the Nasranis. The last ruler of this dynasty was Jacob Swaroopam who died without a male heir. It was around this time that Vasco Da Gama sailed from Lisbon, Portugal to reach Calicut on the Malabar Coast, in 1498.
In the meantime, regular communication from the Syrian region had declined, perhaps because the sea route traffic was controlled by the Portuguese who became all-powerful in the region.
On the other hand, internal fights, persecution by Romans, and the emergence of Arab Muslim kingdoms weakened the Patriarchate of Antioch which was so caught up with its problems that there was little time to oversee the administrative affairs of a far-off Indian Church.
Vasco Da Gama ushered in the power and leadership of the pope backed by the resources and authority of the Portuguese King. Once the sea route was established, missionaries from Portugal began to arrive along with traders. The missionaries are believed to have evangelized the poor and the underprivileged. The number of new converts continued to grow much to the annoyance of the Nazranis.
One must understand the caste dynamic coming into play here. You may have heard your forefathers say they are high-caste Christians. When there is no caste in Christianity, how can it even exist?
Perhaps, they are referring to the Hindu caste system just to make the distinction between themselves, the first Christians who preceded those who converted since the 15th century. The caste system which had entered the common person’s vocabulary came in handy to establish one’s supremacy.
Till the nineteenth century, Kerala practiced untouchability with all its inbuilt social evils. Like elsewhere, the outcastes here like Pulayas, Parayas, Kuravas, Vedas, Nayadis, etc. were denied fundamental rights and treated inhumanly.
The Portuguese showed scant respect for caste and welcomed everyone to the faith, though a lot of violent force was involved too. This is why a large number of people from the so-called outcast communities converted to Christianity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The self-proclaimed high-caste Nazranis opposed this putting the Portuguese in a catch-22 situation. They could not afford to antagonize their trading partners while also carrying out conversions with missionary zeal. They decided to lay low though evangelization continued clandestinely.
Their attempt to bring the Nazranis under the Latin Church headed by the pope in Rome was also in progress but it was a tough task to completely end the influence of the Middle East. Thus began forceful conversions by the Portuguese missionaries of those who were following the Syrian liturgy. This precisely means they converted even those who were already Christians.
Keep in mind that by this time, Goa was captured by the Portuguese and Jesuit missionaries had started working there. Alexis de Menezes who was the archbishop of Goa from 1595–1617 wanted the Nazranis to come under the ambit of the pope.
Influenced by the inquisition in Europe, the archbishop and the Portuguese colonizers called for the Synod in Udayamperoor in 1599. Here a set of rules were formulated and the Nazranis were declared a part of the Latin Catholic Church with the pope as its supreme leader. To implement this, they took the help of the King of Cochin who was subservient to the Portuguese. Those who opposed this were threatened with property seizure and other harsh punishments. The chief priest who was the administrative head of the group of priests in Kerala was forced under duress to accept the synod ruling.
Want to know an interesting story on Portuguese influence in Kerala? Read below:
The Synod ruling was not acceptable to a majority of Nazranis as they felt betrayed. They had survived and thrived without any supreme Spiritual leader so and would’ve wanted to maintain the status quo. No. The main reasons for their opposition were something else.
The synod asked them to discontinue several of their traditional customs and lived systems, which the Portuguese considered local/animist/ paganism and superstitious. They also refused to accept new customs and leadership of the Latin Church.
The military might of the Portuguese ensured no Nasrani could get in touch with the Patriarchate of Chaldeans. Not only was communication completely cut off, but when Mar Ahatalla, a bishop of the Syriac rite, landed in Mylapore he was immediately arrested and deported.
AD 1653: Coonan Cross Oath
For more than half a century, 52 years to be precise, the Nazranis resisted the Portuguese and suffered under them to sustain their indigenous customs and Christian faith. Fed up, the Nasranis revolted against the Portuguese on Jan. 3, 1653, and took an oath publicly that they would not submit to Latin Catholic-Portuguese dominance. This oath later came to be known as Coonan Cross Oath, (Koonan Kurishu Satyam).
Only a handful of Nazranis gathered there and later sided with the Portuguese missionaries. The rest, it is believed, went to St Mary’s Church at Mattancherry holding on to a rope that was tied to a cross while the oath was administered. The Cross slanted due to the pull giving the oath its famous name.
The historic oath broke off Nazaranis practically into two factions — those opposed to and those, even if quietly, with the Portuguese. In contemporary Kerala, we find these two groups further split into at least eight different groups, claiming ancestry to either the ancient Nazranis or St. Thomas Christians of Malabar.
The rebel group broke off and declared itself as part of a separate Church. It came to be called the Malankara Church or Puthenkur (new group). Those who stood with the Portuguese came to be called Pazhayakoor.
The new group was without a bishop as the Portuguese, who had absolute dominance over the Arabian sea continued to block bishops from Arabia or Turkey. Thus, the group decided to ordain a bishop from among themselves independent of the Portuguese. A large number of their people gathered along with senior priests and community leaders at Edappalli on May 22, 1653, and 12 senior priests among them ordained Arkkadiyokan as their spiritual leader.
He came to be called Mar Thoma 1, the supreme head of Kerala Nazrani Christians.
Portuguese, of course, declared this illegal and said the ordination was invalid as the bishop was not ordained by another bishop. A bishop, according to traditional belief, gets the apostolic authority when another bishop, who can trace his laying of hands to the Apostles, lays his hands on him during a ceremony of consecration. Edapplly, a vassal state of Samoorin, was at the centre of this entire saga.
The name Edapalli was an interesting phenomenon during those times. If you travel from Mumbai to Trivandrum, you will see Edapalli (instead of Kochi) on the roadside signboards though it is a small area in Cochin now. This is because Edapalli was a power center during those times. Edapplly was a vassal state of Samoorin and was fighting the King of Cochin and the Portuguese.
This revolt reached Rome and a compromise formula had to be reached. Both factions started capturing the real estate they built as a common entity. The turning point came in 1663 when the Dutch defeated the Portuguese and asked all Portuguese missionaries to leave Malabar. In one of the several ships in which the Dutch sailed to Malabar, Gregorios Abdal Jaleel of Jerusalem, a bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church, landed in Malabar. The Nazranis were looking for leadership to thwart the Latin Catholic Church and this proved to be a golden chance.
Remember Archdeacon George who was the leader during Udayamperoor Synod? He died in 1637 and his nephew Thomas assumed leadership and subsequently in 1653 was consecrated as Bishop Mar Thoma I.
Bishop Thomas wrote a letter to the Pope of Alexandria, Mark VI, instead of Rome, about the condition of indigenous Christians in Kerala. When the letter reached Alexandria, a Syrian Bishop Ahatallah was in Cairo. With no work in hand, Bishop Ahatallah sailed to India and arrived in 1653. It coincided with the Dutch inflicting a defeat on the Portuguese in 1655 AD.
That same year, Mar Gregorius Abdul Jaleel of Jerusalem also arrived in Kerala on a Dutch ship followed by another bishop. However, both these bishops practiced West Syrian liturgy. Among the Nazranis, there were a few who were opposed to West Syrian liturgy. They were the Syrian Christians around Angamalee who did not accept Mar Gregorius and instead waited for East Syrian bishops to give their mantle of leadership.
In 1772, this group formed the Malabar Independent Syrian Church (also called the Thozhiyoor Church) to follow the East Syrian liturgy.
However, the orthodox Malankara Christians separated from the other Christian churches of Kerala that came under the pope in Rome. The group declared that they would follow the Patriarch of Antioch, instead of the pope in Rome and started receiving Apostolic benediction from the Syrian Patriarchate using the liturgy of the Holy Syrian Church of Antioch. This is the reason liturgy still has Suriyani as one of the languages. Kerala was administered by Catholicose of the East then residing in the then Mesopotamian region.
In the next part, we will delve into the era after the sixteenth century which shaped the Church as you see it today. For part I, click here and Part III here. Stay Tuned for the third part.
Christopher Joseph helped weave the chronology and Anosh Malekar edited the story. References are taken from several articles and research papers in public domain. Thanks for their contribution.
