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THE ARCHEPARCHY OF KOTTAYAM
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DIOCESE OF KOTTAYAM OF THE KNANAYA CATHOLICS
By the Apostolic Brief "Universi Christiani" of August 29, 1911, Pope St Pius X erected the Vicariate Apostolic of Kottayam exclusively for the Southists Catholics. The Eparchy of Kottayam in the state of Kerala was instituted for the Southists Community among the St Thomas Christians of India. The Southists later known also as Knanaya are descendants of a group of Jewish Christians who immigrated into Kerala from the Middle East in AD.. 345. Those immigrants were led by an enterprising merchant called Thomas of Kynai. A Bishop named URAHA Mar Yausef, four priests and several deacons were with them to look after their spiritual needs. They settled in Kodungalloor (Cranganore) enjoying many esteemed privileges granted by Cheraman Perumal, the then ruling emperor of Kerala.
The gist of the Southists' tradition is the following: The Church established by St Thomas the Apostle in India was at that time languishing without ecclesial ministers. The Catholicos of the East in Seleucia-Ctesiphon came to know about the sad plight of the Indian Church. Then, as directed by the Catholicos, Thomas Kinayi (knayi, knay, kinan) organized seventy-two Christian families to immigrate into India together with the above said bishop, priests and deacons.
On reaching the Malabar coast with the immigrants, Thomas visited the then ruling Perumal and obtained from him land at Cranganore and highly esteemed privileges. The influx of these immigrants with a bishop and clergy reinvigorated the Indian Church, enabling it to prosper as a privileged community in India. The immigrants following their Judeo-Christian traditions remained as an endogamous community. Hence, among the Christians of St Thomas there is now the ethnic community of the Southists distinct "from the majority community of the Northists.
In the caste-ridden social system of India, those Jewish Christian immigrants from Southern Mesopotamia and their descendants comfortably remained an endogamous community. Residing on the southern portion of Cranganore they came to be known as the Southists in distinction from Northists, who were descendants of the native Indians converted by Apostle St Thoma'3 and were living in the northern portion of the town. The Southists remained an autonomous unit also ecclesiastically with their own churches and priests distinct from those of the Northists. In the course of the time the Southists spread out to other parts of Kerala, especially to the capital towns of several kingdoms, such as Diamper, Thodupuzha (Chunkom), Kaduthuruthy, Kottayam and Kallissery.
Ancharapallikkar
Before the synod of Udayamperoor in 1599, the Knanites had five churches of their own: Udayamperoor, Kaduthuruthy, Kottayam, Chunkom and Kallissery. In some other churches they had one half the share along with other Syrians (Northists). So Knanites were called Ancharapallikkar (owners of five and half churches).
Under the Chaldean Bishops some records can be interpreted in the sense. that at one time in the sixteenth century the Southists and Northists had their own archdeacons who exercised ecclesiastical jurisdiction over their own respective communities. From the year 1600 onwards, the Latin Bishops of the Portuguese Padroado as well as of the Propaganda Fide, who governed the St Thomas Christians, respected and preserved this distinction between the Southists and the Northists also ecclesiastically, instituting separate parishes for these communities, and appointing only priests of the respective community as parish priests. After the Holy See effected a ritual separation between the Orientals and the Latins in Kerala and erected the Vicariate Apostolic of Kottayam and Trichur for the Orientals in 1887, Msgr Charles Lavigne, S.J., the Vicar Apostolic of Kottayam, appointed two pontifically privileged Vicars General, Msgr Mathew Makil for the Southists and Msgr Emmanuel Nidhiri for the Northists. In 1896, the Holy See re-distributed the St Thomas Christians into three Vicariates Apostolic-Trichur, Ernakulam, and Changanacherry. Then the first Vicar Apostolic appointed for Changanacherry was Mar Mathew Makil, a Southist. When Pope St Pius X erected the Vicariate Apostolic of Kottayam (1911), Mar Makil was transferred from Changanacherry to Kottayam.
When the Syro- Malabar hierarchy was constituted by the apostolic constitution Romani Pontifices of December 21, 1923, the Vicariate Apostolic of Kottayam was raised to an eparchy along with the eparchies of Trichur and Changanacherry and the arch-eparchy of Ernakulam. On April 29, 1955, Pope Pius XII extended the jurisdiction of the Syro- Malabar Church to a larger territory comprising the whole of Kerala State and beyond. Then the eparchy of Kottayam was given jurisdiction over all the Southists within the entire extended territory by decree number 1812/48 dated April 29, 1955, issued by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. As His Eminence Accacio Cardinal Coussa interpreted, in matters such as determining the proper parish priest having jurisdiction to bless the marriages of the Southists or the Northists, the distinction between these two communities of the Northists and the Southists has the same canonical force as the distinction between two individual sui juris Churches.
Thus all along the past 16 centuries, ecclesiastical authorities have recognized and confirmed the special individuality of the endogamous community of the Southists among the St Thomas Christians of India.
Bi-Ritual Eparchy: Knanaya Catholics of Syro Malankara Rite
The Syro-Malankara Southists in the eparchy of Kottayam deserve a special mention. Their history may be summed up as follows:
After the unfortunate event of the Coonan Cross Oath of 1653, and the subsequent introduction of Jacobitism into Kerala, about a third of the St Thomas Christians became Jacobites, among whom were also the Southists in about the same proportion. In the following centuries, several attempts were made for re-union, but for one reason or another they were not successful until the first quarter of the 20th century. From 1921 onwards a few priests of the Southist Jacobites joined the Southist Catholic Eparchy of Kottayam. By a decree of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches on July 5, 1921, these reunited priests were allowed to officiate in their own West-Syrian (now Syro-Malankara) Rite. After the re-union of Mar Ivanios and Mar Theophilos in 1930 and the institution of the Syro- Malankara hierarchy on May 18, 1932, the Congregation for the Oriental Churches approved an agreement made between the then Bishop of Kottayam Mar Alexander Chulaparambil and Mar Ivanios agreeing to that those who had already reunited and would reunite later from the Southists Jacobites could continue as part of the Southists' Eparchy of Kottayam, keeping of course, their own Malankara Rite (cf. Letter to the Delegate Apostolic on May 20, 1932, port.76l/31). This agreement has worked well until now with slight modification - in effect granting to the Southists at the time of reunion an option to join the eparchy of Kottayam or an eparchy under the Syro-Malankara hierarchy. Most of the reunited Southists now belong to the Eparchy of Kottayam, only a few having opted for membership in a parish belonging to the Eparchy of Tiruvalla or the Arch-eparchy of Trivandrum. According to the statistics gathered in 2000, the fifteen Syro-Malankara Rite parishes of the Eparchy of Kottayam have three thousand and three hundred members. Ministry for them is now coordinated under an Episcopal Vicar of the Malankara rite.
Some of the reunited Malankara Southists have been requesting the. Holy See for their own Bishop to provide ecclesiastical ministry in their own Rite. It is notable that the corresponding community of the Southist Jacobites have about 60 thousand members. An effort is being made if they or at East a part of them can be induced to make an ecumenical communion with the Catholic Church.
Knanaya Jacobite diocese of Chingavanam
The diocese was erected in 1910, with jurisdiction over all Knanaya Jacobites wherever they may be. The present Metropoletan is Koobberneethi Hakkeemo Abraham Mar Clemis, with the title "Chief Metropolitan of the East" (1951 - ). At present there are 1,00,000 faithful with 60 churches in India and 10 abroad (Indian Christian Directory, 2000, pp 1018-19)
(Taken with permission from Fr. Jacob Vellian's book, Knanite Community, History and Culture. The book is available at Jyothi Book House, K.K. Road, Kottayam 686001, Kerala, India).
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