MALABARESI

MALABARESI. — This is the name given to the Christians of the East-Syrian rite inhabiting the southwestern coast of India known as Malabar, situated in the civil districts of Cochin and Travancore. They themselves call themselves “Christians of St. Thomas” and trace their Christianity back to the preaching of that Apostle. It is not certain, but it is probable, that this preaching took place. In its favor 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 middle of the 5th century. From that time onward the “Christians of St. Thomas” always received their bishops from the Persian katholikós. When the Persian Church became Nestorian toward the end of the 5th century, the bishops coming from there introduced Nestorian formulas into India. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodore of Tarsus, and Nestorius were commemorated in the liturgy.

We have little information about the history of the m. up to the arrival of the Portuguese in India in 1498. The Portuguese established contact with the m. fairly soon; at that time they numbered approximately 30,000 families. As early as 1503 they asked for the protection of the Portuguese. At first, the latter admitted them to participation in the Sacraments. The missionaries, however, soon discovered the difference in doctrine and were scandalized by the diversity of the rites. Gradually, abandoning the errors of Nestorius, the m. formally united themselves with Rome. The archdiocese of Goa, founded in 1539, sought to subject the m. to itself, while the patriarch of Babylon, who had become Catholic in 1552, claimed jurisdiction over the Eastern Catholics of India. Rome initially protected the bishops sent by him, but finally, partly out of fear that heresies might infiltrate, it considered it more prudent to subject the m. to Latin bishops. In 1595 Clement VIII entrusted the archbishop of Goa, Alessio Menezes, with appointing an apostolic vicar in the event of the death of the Syrian bishop Abraham. In 1599 Menezes, with great zeal but little understanding of the particularities of Eastern Christians, made an apostolic visitation of the m. He asked them to separate themselves from the patriarch of Babylon, whom he believed to be Nestorian, whereas he was in fact Catholic. In June 1599 a Synod was held at Diamper, attended by 153 priests and 660 laypeople. At that Synod the union with Rome was solemnly accepted, and a reform in a markedly Latinizing direction was decreed. The Synod was never recognized by Rome.

The Holy See appointed the Catalan Jesuit Francesco Roz bishop of Angamala in December of the same year and subjected the m. to him. He had great difficulties with the indigenous archdeacon, who since ancient times had been accustomed to governing the Church in practice under the shadow of the foreign bishop. He now felt sidelined by Roz, who had no confidence in him. These difficulties led to a schism under Roz’s second successor, Francesco Garcia. The occasion was the arrival in 1652 of a Syrian monk named Athallah, who claimed to have been appointed by the Pope as patriarch of the m. He was arrested by the Inquisition and finally burned as a heretic in 1654. The archdeacon Tommaso de Campo, relying on a supposed authorization from the supposed patriarch Athallah, had himself elected bishop and was “consecrated” through the laying on of hands by twelve priests, while the alleged letter of Athallah was placed upon his head. Finally, he and his adherents submitted to the obedience of the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, and thus the Jacobite Church of India originated.

To resolve the schism, the Congregation of Propaganda Fide sent the Italian Carmelite Giuseppe Sebastiani, who succeeded in bringing the majority of the apostates back to union. He was appointed apostolic vicar by Alexander VII and received episcopal consecration in Rome in the greatest secrecy (1659). Before the Dutch, who occupied Cochin in 1663, drove Fr. Sebastiani away, he used his extraordinary faculties to consecrate the indigenous priest Alessandro de Campo bishop. From 1700 to 1887 the m. were subject to the jurisdiction of the Carmelite apostolic vicars, who came into conflict with the Portuguese jurisdiction of Goa. The m. also often complained about the Carmelite bishops. The arrival of Eastern bishops from Mesopotamia caused great agitation each time and sometimes actual schisms, since from time immemorial the m. had received their own bishops from that region.

From the beginning of the 19th century, among the Eastern Catholics of India there arose the understandable desire, given their number and importance, to have indigenous bishops of their own. The Carmelite apostolic vicars always opposed this desire. A schism provoked by the arrival in 1874 of Bishop Elia Melus, sent against the will of Rome by the Chaldean patriarch Giuseppe Audo, once again demonstrated the urgency of the problem. In 1887 the Holy See removed the m. from the jurisdiction of the Carmelite bishops of Verapoly and established two new vicariates, Trichur and Kottayam, which were nevertheless entrusted to Latin bishops. Only on 11 August 1896 were three indigenous priests appointed apostolic vicars and consecrated bishops. Finally, Pius XI, through the constitution Romani Pontificis (21 December 1923), established an ecclesiastical province directly dependent on the Holy See, with its metropolitan see at Ernakulam and the suffragan sees of Changanacherry, Trichur, and Kottayam.

Since the institution of the indigenous hierarchy in 1896, the Church has undergone great development among the m. In 50 years the number of the faithful rose from 244,310 to 928,881. According to the most recent statistical data, the number of the faithful is 974,109; that of priests, 1,153; churches and chapels, 589; and religious sisters, 3,109. Religious life flourishes among the m. The Congregation of Carmelite tertiaries has existed since 1831. Around 1925 the Congregation of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart was founded in the diocese of Kottayam, while at the same time the Lazarists began their own Eastern branch. There are seven flourishing congregations of women religious. The formation of the clergy, which is excellent, is provided in one major seminary and four minor seminaries. Numerous confraternities promote the piety of the laity, and there are many youth associations for students and numerous schools, some also of university rank. Five monthly periodicals serve the apostolate of the press. A sign of the religious vitality of the m. is the fact that each year between 1,000 and 1,500 conversions from paganism are recorded.

BBL.: E. Tisserant, Syro-Malabare (Eelise), in DThC, XIV, cols. 3089–3162; J. C. Panjikaran, Christianity in Malabar: The St. Thomas Christians of the Syro-Malabar rite (Orientalia Christiana, VI, 23), Rome 1926, pp. 93–136; I. Hausherr, De erroribus Nestorianorum qui in hoc India Orientali versantur, auctore F. Roz S. I. (ibid., XI, 40), there 1928, pp. 5–36; K. Worth, Das Schisma der Thomasechristen unter Erzbischof F. Garcia, Limburg 1937; Placidus a S. Joseph, De fontibus iuris ecclesiastici Syro-malabaressium commentarius historico-canonicus, in S. Congregatio pro Ecclesia Orientali, Codificazione canonica orientale, Fonti, 2nd series, fasc. VIII, Vatican City 1937; Ambrosius a S. Theresia, Hierarchia Carmelitana sua veries illustrium praesulum ecclesiasticorum ex ordine Carmelitarum discalceaturum. IV. De praesulibus missionis Malabaricae. Pars I: Ecclesia Verapolitana, Rome 1939.

Guglielmo de Vries
THE MALABAR RITE. — The Malabar rite is, in origin, nothing other than the Chaldean rite as it was practiced in Mesopotamia; but from the sixteenth century onward it underwent such important Latin influences that today it may be reckoned both among the Latin rite and among the Chaldean rite. Indeed, the internal arrangement of the Church conforms to the Latin rite, especially the sanctuary and the altar with its cloths, tabernacle, candlesticks, etc., as well as the liturgical vestments of the sacred ministers; moreover, as regards the 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 whole liturgical year, which begins with the four Sundays of Advent, and the entire calendar, which is progressively brought up to date as new feasts are introduced into the Latin Church; consequently, the Missal of Verapoly (1929) conforms almost entirely to the Latin one.

On the other hand, Syriac has been preserved as the sole liturgical language, although it is wholly foreign to the indigenous language; likewise, the Divine Office with its Syriac prayers and poems, divided into two books, one for feasts and the other for ferial days; in it the Latin calendar is not followed, but rather the periods of the Chaldean ecclesiastical year. The chant is neither Indian nor Latin, but traditional and Mesopotamian in origin. The Mass too is the Chaldean Mass with the most ancient anaphora of the Apostles, except that unleavened bread and Hosts of Latin form are used, the Latin prayers of vesting are recited, the Creed is said 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 of Communion; the latter is distributed to the faithful under one species only. The funeral rite retains, on the one hand, very many hymns proper to the Chaldean rite, but it also includes the Latin ceremony of the Absolutio ad tumulum with the singing of the Libera me and the prayer Fidelium. Thus it is not only the outward form, such as genuflection on one knee, that has been Latinized, but also what constitutes the rite inwardly: prayers, calendar, and sacramental rites.

The historical causes that produced this state of affairs go back to the sixteenth century. Twenty years after the arrival of the Portuguese in Malabar, one of them, Alvarez Penteado, wrote in 1518 that the Malabarese ought to be compelled to follow the customs of Rome. At the Third Provincial Council of Goa (1585), it was decided to translate the following Latin books into Syriac: the Breviary, Missal, Pontifical, and Ritual (cf. Bullarium patronatus Portugalliae..., Appendix, I, Lisbon 1872, p. 75). In 1599 the Synod of Dlamper decreed that heretical books (including liturgical books) should be burned, that the anaphoras of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius should be suppressed, that the formula Mater Dei should be introduced in place of Mater Christi, that the Latin calendar should be used, certainly without mention of any Nestorian saint, etc.

Of the liturgical manuscripts executed 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 them the pressure of the Latin missionaries is already evident; for example, cod. Vat. syr. 66 is fundamentally a Pontifical of the Chaldean rite with the addition of the anaphoras of the Apostles and of Theodore, but the first 25 folios contain the Syriac translation of the Latin rite of ordinations.

The first liturgical books were printed by the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome: the liturgy of the holy Apostles (1774), the Missal (1775), the Ritual (1775), again the Missal (1844), and the Ritual (1845); these and other books were subsequently printed in several editions in various printing houses of Malabar.

Alfonso Raes