MALABARESE — Originally, the Malabar Rite was nothing other than the Chaldean Rite as practiced in Mesopotamia; but from the 16th century onward it underwent such significant Latin influences that today it can be counted alongside both the Latin Rite and the Chaldean Rite. In fact, the internal arrangement of the Church conforms to the Latin Rite, particularly the sanctuary and the altar with its linens, tabernacle, candlesticks, etc., as well as the liturgical vestments of the sacred ministers. Moreover, regarding texts and rubrics, the entire Ritual (Sacraments, sacramentals, blessings), the entire Pontifical (in which Latin is used for sacred ordinations), and finally, at least for the Mass, the entire liturgical year—which begins with the four Sundays of Advent—and the calendar, which progressively aligns with the introduction of new feasts in the Latin Church, are all structured accordingly. Thus, the Missal of Verapoly (1929) is almost entirely in conformity with the Latin Missal.
On the other hand, Syriac has been preserved as the sole liturgical language, despite being entirely foreign to the indigenous tongue. The Divine Office, with its Syriac prayers and hymns, is divided into two books—one for feasts and the other for ferial days—and follows the periods of the Chaldean ecclesiastical year rather than the Latin calendar. The chant is neither Indian nor Latin but is of traditional Mesopotamian origin. The Mass itself is the Chaldean Mass with the most ancient anaphora of the Apostles, except that unleavened bread, Latin-style hosts, and the Latin prayers of vesting are used. The Creed is recited immediately after the Gospel, the words of consecration are taken from the Roman Canon, as are the *Agnus Dei*, the *Domine, non sum dignus*, and the formula for Communion. Communion is distributed to the faithful under a single species. The funeral rite retains many of the hymns proper to the Chaldean Rite, but it also incorporates the Latin ceremony of the *Abolutio ad tumulum* with the singing of the *Libera me* and the prayer *Fidelium*. Thus, not only the external elements—such as genuflecting on one knee—have been Latinized, but also what constitutes the rite internally: prayers, calendar, and sacramental rituals.
The historical causes behind this state of affairs date back to the 16th century. Twenty years after the arrival of the Portuguese in Malabar, one of them, Álvaro Penteado, wrote in 1518 that the Malabarians should be compelled to follow Roman usages. At the Third Provincial Council of Goa (1585), it was decided to translate into Syriac the following Latin books: the Breviary, the Missal, the Pontifical, and the Ritual (cf. *Bularium patronatus Portugalliae*..., *Appendix*, I, Lisbon 1872, p. 75). In 1599, the Synod of Diamper decreed the burning of heretical books (including liturgical ones), the suppression of the anaphoras of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, the introduction of the formula *Mater Dei* instead of *Mater Christi*, and the adoption of the Latin calendar, which certainly omitted any mention of Nestorian saints, among other measures.
Of the liturgical manuscripts produced before that Synod, only those preserved in the Vatican Library remain (cf. *G. Levi Della Vida, Ricerche sulla formazione del più antico fondo dei manoscritti orientali della Biblioteca Vaticana* [*Studi e testi*, 92], Vatican City 1939, pp. 176-89). In these, the pressure of Latin missionaries is already evident; for example, Vatican Syriac ms. 66 is fundamentally a Pontifical of the Chaldean Rite with the addition of the anaphoras of the Apostles and Theodore, but the first 25 folios contain the Syriac translation of the Latin rite of ordinations.
The first liturgical books were printed by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome: the liturgy of the Holy Apostles (1774), the Missal (1775), the Ritual (1775), followed by another edition of the Missal (1844) and the Ritual (1845). These and other books have subsequently been printed in multiple editions by various Malabar presses.