What is this Syro-Malabar Church that’s teetering on schism?
Some 3 million believers, mostly in India, belong to the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. In communion with Rome, but part of the Eastern Syriac tradition, they are little known in the West.
An expert advisor to the Vatican recently told reporters that the Catholic Church was facing the real possibility of new schism in the run-up to Christmas. He said nearly 400 priests of the Syro-Malabar Church were likely to be excommunicated.
The cause? A refusal to obey Pope Francis’ demand that all Syro-Malabar communities apply a compromise reform the Church’s Synod agreed upon several years ago regarding the celebration of the Holy Qurbana (Mass). The reform concluded that the priest-presider would face the assembly during the Liturgy of the Word and the high altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
This dispute puts the spotlight on the Syro-Malabar Church, a branch of Eastern Syriac Catholicism little known in the West. According to Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, a historian specializing in Eastern Christian cultures, "around 3 million people" belong to this Church, particularly in the southern Indian state of Kerala, a Christian stronghold in an otherwise Hindu-majority country.
The first Eastern Rite Catholic Church created
"Historically, it was the first Eastern Rite Catholic Church to be created," said Briquel-Chatonnet.
According to tradition, the Syro-Malabar Church was founded in the year 52 by Saint Thomas the Apostle in Kerala, India. "Tradition has it that Saint Thomas went as far as this region and evangelized the people living on the Malabar coast before dying a martyr's death in Madras," the historian explained to La Croix. This is why these Catholics are sometimes known as "St. Thomas Christians".
Although the Syro-Malabar Church is linked to this apostle "in the same way as Roman Catholics claim to be linked to the apostles Peter and Paul", the specialist pointed out that there is no historical evidence "that St Thomas founded it". "The presence of Christians on this Malabar coast is only documented from the beginning of the 6th century," said Briquel-Chatonnet.
At the time, they were under the domination of the Eastern Church, excluded from ecumenical councils such as Nicaea-Constantinople and considered heretical. Fully heir to the history of the Eastern Church, the Syro-Malabar Church did not officially exist until the 16th century, when it came into contact with Portuguese Jesuit missionaries.
Strong Latin influence
The encounter between missionaries attached to the Church of Rome led to the Latinization of the liturgy of the Syro-Malabar Rite. The missionaries "regarded the Syro-Malabars as heretics and felt they had to be brought by force into the fold of the holy Roman Catholic Church", Briquel-Chatonnet explained.
The Syro-Malabar Rite had been so extremely Latinized that it could no longer be distinguished from the Roman Rite, unlike other liturgies of other Eastern Churches in communion with Rome.
After the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Holy See did an about-face and "called on the Syro-Malabar Church to return to its own traditions", the historian said. Some priests in the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly refused to accept this reversal, which has since fueled tensions within this Church of the East.