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Metropolitanate of All India ܒܬ ܗܙܕܐ | |
|---|---|
| Bishopric | |
&sq=Facebook&lang=en&file=File:Mar_Abraham_Metropolitan_of_Angamaly.jpg) Metropolitan Abraham (1597) - the last Metropolitan of the Archdiocese | |
| Location | |
| Country | India |
| Territory | India and China |
| Ecclesiastical province | India |
| Metropolitan | From 8th century AD |
| Headquarters | several[1] |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Saint Thomas Christians |
| Sui iuris church | Church of the East |
| Rite | East Syriac Rite |
| Established | AD 50s [citation needed] |
| Cathedral | several[2] |
| Part of a series on |
| Eastern Christianity |
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Metropolitanate of India (Syriac: Beth Hindaye) was an East Syriac ecclesiastical province of the Church of the East, at least nominally, from the seventh to the sixteenth century. The Malabar region (Kerala) of India had long been home to a thriving Eastern Christian community, known as the Saint Thomas Christians. The community traces its origins to the evangelical activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. The Christian communities in India used the East Syriac Rite, the traditional liturgical rite of the Church of the East. They also adopted some aspects of Dyophysitism of Theodore of Mopsuestia, often inaccurately referred as Nestorianism, in accordance with theology of the Church of the East.[3][4][5] It is unclear when the relation between Saint Thomas Christian and the Church of the East was established. Initially, they belonged to the metropolitan province of Fars, but were detached from that province in the 7th century, and again in the 8th, and given their own metropolitan bishop.[6][7]
Due to the distance between India and the seat of the Patriarch of the Church of the East, communication with the church's heartland was often spotty, and the province was frequently without a bishop. An eleventh-century reference states that the metropolitan province of India had been 'suppressed', due to communication difficulties.[8] At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Indian Church was again dependent on the Church of the East. Although India was supplied with bishops from the Middle East, the effective control lay in the hands of an indigenous priest known as Arkkadiyakkon or Archdeacon.[9] He was the community leader of Saint Thomas Christians. Even in times when there were multiple foreign bishops, there was only one archdeacon for entire Saint Thomas Community.[10] As such, the Indian church was largely autonomous in operation, though the authority of the Patriarch was always respected.
In the 15th century, the Portuguese arrived in India. Initially, the relationship between native Saint Thomas Christians and the Portuguese were friendly. But gradually, the ritual diversities widened and the relationship deteriorated. After a section of the Church of the East became Catholic (modern day Chaldean Catholic Church) in 1553, both the Nestorian and Chaldean Churches intermittently attempted to regain their old influence in India by sending their bishops to the Malabar Christians. In 1565, the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Angamaly was established to provide jurisdiction for the Chaldean Church in India. On occasion the Vatican supported the claims of Catholic bishops from the Chaldean Church. However, the Portuguese ascendancy was formalised at the Synod of Diamper in 1599, which effectively suppressed the historic East Syriac metropolitan province of India. Angamaly, the former seat of the East Syriac metropolitan diocese, was downgraded to a suffragan diocese of the Padroado Archdiocese of Goa.
Today, the Chaldean Syrian Church of India is the continuation of the East Syriac ecclesiastical province in the Indian subcontinent, being an archdiocese of the Assyrian Church of the East.[11] It has around 15,000 communicants.[12]
- ^ Cathedral of St. Quriaqos, Shengala (in 1301); Cathedral of Mar Hormizd Rabban in Angamaly (since 1577)
- ^ Cathedral of St. Quriaqos, Shengala (in 1301); Cathedral of Mar Hormizd Rabban (since 1577)
- ^ Brock, Sebastian P; Coakley, James F. "Church of the East". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
- ^ Michael Philip Penn; Scott Fitzgerald Johnson; Christine Shepardson; Charles M. Stang, eds. (22 February 2022). "Appendix C: Glossary: DYOPHYSITE". Invitation to Syriac Christianity: An Anthology (22-Feb-2022 ed.). University of California Press. p. 409. ISBN 9780520299191.
DYOPHYSITE Broadly, a Christological viewpoint that holds that Christ has two natures, one human and one divine. The East Syrian Church subscribed to a type of dyophysitism attributed to Nestorius and held in attenuated ways by both Greek and Syriac theologians. In the end, this association led the church to be labeled, erroneously, as Nestorian. This view held that Christ has both two natures and two persons. A moderated form of dyophysitism, according to which Christ has two natures and one person, was adopted by Chalcedonian Christians. East Syrian Dyophysite Syriac Church that has historically been centered in Persia, with missionary activity in Greater Iran, Arabia, Central Asia, China, and India. The East Syrian Church developed into the modern Church of the East. Polemical writings and older scholarship sometimes called the East Syrian Church "Nestorian," but this is now recognized as pejorative.
- ^ Meyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450–680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. pp. 287–289. ISBN 978-0-88-141056-3.
- ^ Brock 2011.
- ^ Perczel 2018, p. 662–663.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Fieywas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Brock 2011: Although India was supplied with bishops (and from Timotheos’s time, metropolitans) from the Middle East, the effective control lay in the hands of the indigenous Archdeacon.
- ^ Joseph, Clara. A.B (2019). Christianity in India: The Anti-Colonial Turn. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781351123846.
Documents address him as the Jathikku Karthavyan [the head of the caste], that is, the head of the Thomas Christians.....even when there were more than one foreign bishop, there was only one Archdeacon for entire St.Thomas Community"
- ^ Haffner, Paul (2007). Mystery of the Church. Gracewing Publishing. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-85244-133-6.
- ^ World Christianity. Missions Advanced Research and Communication Center. 1979. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-912552-33-0.