Malankaresi - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, p. 1123

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

MALANKARESI. — The word is in itself synonymous with malabaresi, but it is used to designate the Catholics of the Western-Syrian rite on the Malabar coast, in order to distinguish them from those malabaresi (v.). Both are of the same origin. M. is the name given to those faithful who, since 1930, have converted from Monophysitism to the Catholic Church.

The Monophysites or Jacobites of India derive from a schism that took place in 1653 among the malabaresi. In that year almost all the Eastern Catholics of India, dissatisfied with the severe regime of the Jesuit Latin bishops, temporarily separated from the Catholic Church. Those who, under the leadership of the archdeacon Tommaso de Campo, persisted in the separation submitted to the obedience of the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch. The archdeacon asked him for help, and in 1665 the patriarch sent a Jacobite bishop. Tommaso was consecrated bishop and had to anathematize Nestorius and accept Severian Monophysitism. His adherents also adopted the rite of the patriarch of Antioch, that is, the Western-Syrian rite. A portion of the Jacobites of India united with the Anglicans at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Their definitive separation from their fellow believers took place in 1837. At the beginning of the twentieth century another division affected the Jacobites of India. Approximately half withdrew in 1909 from the obedience of the patriarch of Antioch, declaring themselves independent, and subsequently gave their metropolitan the title of katholika. The Catholic M. originate from this latter group. In order to emerge from the isolation caused by the rupture with Antioch, they began negotiations with Rome, which concluded in 1930. Two bishops converted: Mâr Ivanios, bishop of Bethany, and Mâr Teofilos, bishop of Tiruvalla. By the end of 1931, 35 priests, 19 religious, 6 seminarians, 39 sisters, and 4,700 faithful had already passed to the Catholic Church. On 11 June 1932 Pius XI, by the constitution Christo Pastorum Principi, erected an ecclesiastical province immediately subject to the Holy See. Mâr Ivanios was appointed metropolitan of Trivandrum and Mâr Teofilos his suffragan as bishop of Tiruvalla. In 1937 another bishop, Mâr Severios, became Catholic.

The Malankarese Church experienced rapid development. It already numbers 58,537 faithful, 113 priests, 34 religious (the Brotherhood of the Imitation of Christ of Bethany), and 291 churches and chapels. There are two congregations of sisters: that of Bethany, for the education of young women, with 18 members, and that of the Daughters of Mary, for teaching catechism to the poor, with 18 sisters and 24 novices.

There are 66 schools and a small seminary of S. Luigi for the formation of the clergy. The theologians study in interritual seminaries; 12 Carmelites and 8 Franciscans collaborate with the indigenous clergy. The Jacobites still number approximately 300,000, and the «reformed» 100,000, a group that originated in the second half of the last century.

BIBL.: M. Ivanios, The Malabar reunion, in Pax, 114 (1931); Placidus a S. Joseph, De fontibus iuris ecclesiastici syro-malankarensiis commentarius historico-canonicus (S. Congregazione per la Chiesa orientale, codificazione canonica orientale, fonti, 2ª serie, 8), Vatican City 1937; E. Tisserant, Syro-Malabore (Eglis), in DThC, XIV, II, cols. 3089–3162; G. Ettumano Karan, in L'Oriente cristiano e l'unità della Chiesa, Rome 1942, p. 34 ff. Guglielmo de Vries

THE MALANKARESE RITE. — It is none other than the rite of the Western Syrians accepted in India by the Malabares who had separated from union with Rome. In 1665 Tommaso Parambil received episcopal ordination from Mâr Gregorios, Jacobite Syriac archbishop of Jerusalem.

(from R. P. Strong, Stitt's diagnosis, prevention and treatment of tropical diseases, I. Londra 1915, p. 2, pg. 2 [with modifications]) MALARIA — Sporogonic cycle (A) in the anopheles mosquito, and schizogonic cycle (B) in the human being, of the malarial parasite. A — Below, maturation and fertilization of the gametes: formation of the ookinete or vermicule (a). Above, oocysts and formation of the sporozoites. B — Above, formation of the gametocytes. Below, various stages of schizogony.

No particulars concerning that change of rite have been transmitted. The Syriac language remained the principal language, but Arabic yielded its place to Malayalam as the secondary language.

The following editions are known: Messale (with 5 anaphoras, Pampakuda 1886); Rituale (there, about the same time); Ufficio feriale (Kottayam 1898); Ufficio festivo (there, 1920); Settimana Santa, Quaresima, Rogazioni del digiuno di Niniue (Pampakuda 1931, 1932, 1933); Messale (with 16 anaphoras, there, 1931).

In 1930 Mâr Ivanios, with a group of his followers, reunited with Rome and retained his rite. On this occasion Rome recognized for the first time the legitimacy of the addition: « Qui crucifixus es pro nobis » to the singing of the Trisagion. A Messale was published at Pampakuda (with anaphoras) in 1934. In these later years the Catholics underwent a dual ritual influence, that proceeding from the Latins and that, no less strong, of the Malabares, who had already become highly Latinized.

BIBLI: G. B. Howard, The christians of st. Thomas and their liturgies, Oxford 1864 (in the appendix, version of the Mass and of six anaphoras). Alfonso Raes