The Orthodox from the 19th Century

By the dawn of the 19th century the British had established themselves in India; Kerala came under their sway. Residents Col. Colin Macaulay and Col. John Munro, Anglican Christians of evangelical persuasion, befriended both Roman and Orthodox communities and departed from the Portuguese and Dutch policy of oppressing or ignoring the Orthodox. A Trust Fund was instituted with the East India Company; Munro helped found the Seminary at Kottayam (1815)—now the Orthodox Theological Seminary—and promoted a “Mission of Help” by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in collaboration with the Orthodox Church.

The CMS Mission and Its End

CMS missionaries arrived between 1816 and 1818 and were well received. They taught at the Seminary, translated the Bible into Malayalam, and established schools. A section in the Church, however, appealed to the West Syrian Patriarch to send a bishop and take control. Patriarch sent Mar Athanasius (1825); the resident refused to accept him as bishop instead of the Indian bishops and asked him to leave. The pro-patriarchal party blamed the missionaries for their failure. When Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta proposed a six-point programme in 1835, the Church at Mavelikara (January 1836) rejected it, declaring: “We are Jacobite Syrians subject to the patriarch of Antioch… We cannot permit the same.” Thus ended the CMS collaboration after twenty years. The missionaries claimed most assets; a reform movement within the Church led to divisions and eventually to the Mar Thoma Church and the Jacobite Syrian Church.

The Synod of Mulanthuruthy (1876)

Patriarch Peter IV came to Kerala in 1875, dethroned Mar Athanasius (the reform party leader), and convened a synod at Mulanthuruthy in June 1876. The Synod decided to adhere closely to West Syrian doctrinal, liturgical and disciplinary norms and to accept the Patriarch’s jurisdictional claims. The Patriarch then consecrated six bishops on his own authority. The outcomes were momentous: the faith, liturgy, episcopacy and administration of the Orthodox in India were aligned with the West Syrian Church. Litigation between the party under Dionysius V and the reform party (Mar Athanasius / Thomas Athanasius) continued till 1889, when the reform party yielded and formed themselves as the Mar Thoma Syrian Church. The section under Dionysius V came to be called the Jacobite Church in India under the West Syrian Patriarch.