MALABARESI. — This is the name given to the Christians of the Syro-Oriental rite who inhabit the south-western coast of India known as Malabar, located in the civil districts of Cochin and Travancore. They themselves call themselves “Christians of St Thomas” and trace their Christianity to the preaching of that Apostle. It is not certain, but it is probable, that such preaching took place. In its favour there is a not inconsiderable literary tradition and a strong local tradition. At least by the 2nd century there were already Christians in India, probably dependent on Edessa. The dependence of those Christians on the primatial see of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in Persia probably dates only from the mid-5th century. From that time onwards the “Christians of St Thomas” always received their bishops from the Persian katholikós. When, towards the end of the 5th century, the Persian Church became Nestorian, the bishops coming from there introduced Nestorian formulae into India. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodore of Tarsus and Nestorius were commemorated in the liturgy.
Little is known of the history of the Malabarese before the arrival of the Portuguese in India in 1498. The Portuguese soon established contact with the Malabarese, who then numbered about 30,000 families. They requested Portuguese protection as early as 1503. The Portuguese at first allowed them to participate in the Sacraments. The missionaries, however, soon discovered the difference in doctrine and were scandalised by the diversity of rites. Gradually the Malabarese, abandoning the errors of Nestorius, formally united with Rome. The archdiocese of Goa, founded in 1539, sought to subject the Malabarese to itself, while the patriarch of Babylon, who had become Catholic in 1552, claimed jurisdiction over the Eastern Catholics of India. Rome at first protected the bishops sent by him, but finally, also fearing the infiltration of heresies, judged it more prudent to subject the Malabarese to Latin bishops. Clement VIII in 1595 entrusted the archbishop of Goa, Alexis de Menezes, with the task of appointing, in the event of the death of the Syrian bishop Abraham, an apostolic vicar. Menezes, in 1599, with great zeal but little understanding of the particularities of the Eastern Christians, carried out an apostolic visitation of the Malabarese. He asked them to detach themselves from the patriarch of Babylon, whom he believed to be Nestorian, whereas in reality he was Catholic. In June 1599 a synod was held at Diamper, attended by 153 priests and 660 laymen. At this synod union with Rome was solemnly accepted and a reform decreed in a markedly Latinising direction. The synod was never recognised by Rome.
In December of the same year the Holy See appointed the Catalan Jesuit Francis Roz bishop of Angamale and subjected the Malabarese to him. He encountered great difficulties with the indigenous archdiocese, which from ancient times had been accustomed to govern the Church in fact under the shadow of the foreign bishop. Now it felt itself set aside by Roz, who had no confidence in II. These difficulties led, under Roz’s second successor, Francis Garcia, to schism. The occasion was provided in 1652 by the arrival of a Syrian monk named Athallah, who claimed to have been appointed by the Pope as patriarch of the Malabarese. He was arrested by the Inquisition and finally in 1654 burned as a heretic. Thomas de Campo, archbishop, relying on a supposed authorisation of the alleged patriarch Athallah, had himself elected bishop and was “consecrated” by the laying on of hands of twelve priests, while a supposed letter of Athallah was placed over his head. Finally, with his followers, he passed into obedience to the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, and thus the Jacobite Church of India came into being.
To heal the schism the Congregation of Propaganda Fide sent the Italian Carmelite Joseph Sebastiani, who succeeded in winning back the majority of the apostates to union. He was appointed apostolic vicar by Alexander VII and received episcopal consecration in Rome in great secrecy (1659). Before the Dutch, who in 1663 occupied Cochin, drove out Fr Sebastiani, he, exercising his extraordinary faculties, consecrated as bishop the indigenous priest Alexander de Campo. From 1700 to 1887 the Malabarese were subject to the jurisdiction of Carmelite apostolic vicars, who had conflicts with the Portuguese jurisdiction of Goa. The Malabarese often complained also of the Carmelite bishops. The arrival of Eastern bishops from Mesopotamia each time caused great agitation and sometimes real schisms, since from time immemorial the Malabarese had received their bishops from that region.
From the beginning of the 19th century the Eastern Catholics of India felt, understandably given their number and importance, the desire to have indigenous bishops of their own. The Carmelite apostolic vicars always opposed this desire. A schism provoked in 1874 by the arrival of Bishop Elias Mellus, sent against the will of Rome by the Chaldean patriarch Joseph Audo, showed again the urgency of the problem. The Holy See in 1887 withdrew the Malabarese from the jurisdiction of the Carmelite bishops of Verapoly and created two new vicariates, Trichur and Kottayam, which were however entrusted to Latin bishops. Only on 11 August 1896 were three indigenous priests appointed apostolic vicars and consecrated bishops. Finally Pius XI, with the constitution Romani Pontificis (21 December 1923), erected an ecclesiastical province directly dependent on the Holy See with its metropolitan see at Ernakulam and the suffragans of Changanacherry, Trichur and Kottayam.
Since the establishment of the indigenous hierarchy in 1896, the Church has made great progress among the Malabarese. In 50 years the number of faithful rose from 244,310 to 928,881. According to the most recent statistical data the number of faithful is 974,109; that of priests 1,153; of churches and chapels 589; of nuns 3,109. Religious life flourishes among the Malabarese. Since 1831 there has existed the Congregation of the Carmelite Tertiaries. About 1925 in the diocese of Kottayam the Congregation of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart was founded and at the same time the Lazarists began their own Eastern branch. There are seven flourishing congregations of nuns. The formation of the clergy, which is excellent, is given in one large and four small seminaries. Numerous confraternities promote the piety of the laity and there are many youth associations for students and numerous schools, some of university rank. Five monthly reviews serve the apostolate of the press. A sign of the religious vitality of the Malabarese is the fact that every year from 1,000 to 1,500 conversions from paganism are recorded.