THE FIRST JESUITS IN KERALA,1291-1348

A Bishop for Kollam in 1328

L K Ananthakrisha Ayyar,in his pioneering work,The Anthropology of Syrian Christians makes this statement:

"In the thirteenth century, the first Latin missionaries, John of Monte Carvino, Friar Jordanus and John de Marignoli, arrived in Malabar and made converts, but their labours were ineffectual. Until the advent of the Portuguese in India, the Syrian Church was following without any hindrance, in its ritual, practice and communion, a creed of the Syro-Chaldean Church of the East. Conquest and conversion were as close to the heart of the Portuguese as were enterprise and commerce. At first they gladly welcomed the Syrians as their brethren Christians, and never thought of interfering with the doctrines, but they were soon seen to change their attitude towards them. The latter had their mother church at Babylon with their Patriarch at Mosul in Asia Minor, and were of Nestorian faith. This was shocking to Portuguese, who, after the conquest of territories and the establishment of their capital or headquarters at Goa, soon entered on a policy of conversion, and their first care was to intercept all correspondence with the eastern Patriarchs and to prevent communion with them."

Ayyar also states:"Further, it is pointed out that the Portuguese garrison at Cannanore read the Syrian Mass of the Bishops, and in A D 1348 the Syrian Christians at Quilon paid money to John Marignolli (1290-1360) as the Pope Clement's legate. "

Ayyar doesn't supply their other details.Who are they?

Giovanni de' Marignolli (Latin: Johannes Marignola ) variously anglicized as John of Marignolli or John of Florence, was a notable 14th-century Catholic European traveller to medieval China and India.

Giovani Marignolli

Giovanni was born, probably before 1290, to the noble Florentine family of the Marignolli. The family is long extinct, but the Via de' Cerretani, a street near the cathedral, formerly bore their name. Giovanni received his habit at the Franciscan basilica of Santa Croce at a young age. His work claims he later held the chair of theology at the University of Bologna.In 1338 he arrived at Avignon, where Pope Benedict XII held his court, an embassy from the great khan of Cathay (the Mongol emperor of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty), bearing letters to the pontiff from the khan himself, and from certain Christian Alan nobles in his service. These latter represented that they had been eight years (since Monte Corvino's death) without a spiritual guide, and earnestly desired one. 

The pope replied to the letters and appointed four ecclesiastics as his legates to the khan's court. The name "John of Florence" appears third on the letters of commission. A large party was associated with the four chief envoys: when in Khanbaliq (within modern Beijing), the embassy still numbered thirty-two out of an original fifty. The mission left Avignon in December 1338; picked up the "Tatar" envoys at Naples on 10 February 1339;and arrived at Pera near Constantinople on May 1.While there, the Byzantine emperor Andronicus III pled in vain for reconciliation and alliance with the western church. Leaving June 24, they sailed across the Black Sea to Caffa on the Crimea, whence they travelled to the court of Özbeg, khan of the Golden Horde, at Sarai on the Volga. The khan entertained them hospitably during the winter of 1339-40 and then sent them with an escort across the steppes to Armalec, or Almaliq (within modern Huocheng County), the northern seat of the house of Chaghatai. "There," says Marignolli, "we built a church, bought a piece of ground... sung masses, and baptized several persons", notwithstanding that only the year before the bishop (referring to Bishop of Armalec) and six other minor friars had there undergone glorious martyrdom for Christ's salvation.

Quitting Almaliq in the winter of 1341, they crossed the Gobi Desert by way of Kumul (within modern Hami), reaching Khanbaliq in May or June 1342. They were well received by Toghon Temür, the last emperor of the Yuan dynasty in China. An entry in the Chinese annals fixes the year of Marignolli's presentation by its mention of the arrival of the great horses from the kingdom of the Folang (i.e., Farang or Franks), one of which was 11 feet 6 inches in length, and 6 feet 8 inches high and black all over. Marignolli stayed at Khanbaliq for three or four years, after which he travelled through southern and eastern China to Quanzhou (modern Xiamen), quitting China apparently in December 1347. He had been impressed by the Christian community in China, its imperial support, and Chinese culture.

He reached Columbum (Kaulam, Kollam or Quilon in Malabar) in Easter week of 1348. He found a church of the Latin communion, probably founded by Jordanus of Severac, who had been appointed Bishop of Columbum (Diocese of Quilon) by Pope John XXII in 1330. Here Marignolli remained sixteen months, after which he proceeded on what seems very much a wandering voyage. First he visited the shrine of St Thomas near the modern Madras, and then proceeded to what he calls the kingdom of Saba, and identifies with the Sheba of Scripture, but which seems from various particulars to have been Java. Taking ship again for Malabar on his way to Europe, he encountered great storms. They found shelter in the little port of Pervily or Pervilis (Beruwala or Berberyn) in the south-west of Ceylon; but here the legate fell into the hands of "a certain tyrant Coya Jaan (Khoja Jahan), a eunuch and an accursed Saracen," who professed to treat him with all deference but detained him four months and plundered all the gifts and Eastern rarities that he was carrying home. This detention in Ceylon enabled Marignolli to give a variety of curious particulars regarding Buddhist monasticism, the aboriginal races of Ceylon, and other marvels. The locals claimed that "Seyllan" (Adam's Peak) was 40 miles from Paradise, but he was unable to explore the area.After this we have only fragmentary notices, showing that his route to Europe lay by Ormuz, the ruins of Babel, Bagdad, Mosul, Aleppo and thence to Damascus and Jerusalem.In 1353, he arrived at Naples, whence he visited Florence before returning to Avignon by the end of the year. There, he delivered a letter from the great khan to Pope Innocent VI.

In the following year the Emperor Charles IV, on a visit to Italy, made Marignolli one of his chaplains. Soon after, in March 1354, the pope made him bishop of Bisignano but he seems to have been in no hurry to reside there. He appears to have accompanied the emperor to Prague in 1354–1355; in 1356 he is found acting as envoy to the Pope from Florence; and in 1357 he is at Bologna. That year, the emperor called him to be a councillor and his court historian. At his behest, Marignolli then compiled his Annals of Bohemia.

We do not know when he died. The last trace of Marignolli is a letter addressed to him, which was found in the 18th century among the records in the chapter library at Prague. 

John of Montecorvino or Giovanni da Montecorvino in Italian (1247–1328) was an Italian Franciscan missionary, traveller and statesman, founder of the earliest Roman Catholic missions in India and China, and archbishop of Peking.

John was born at Montecorvino Rovella, in what is now Campania, Italy.

As a member of a Roman Catholic religious order which at that time was chiefly concerned with the conversion of non-Catholics, he was commissioned in 1272 by the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos to Pope Gregory X, to negotiate for the reunion of the 'Greek' (Orthodox) and Latin churches.

John of Montecorvino

Commissioned by the Holy See to preach Christianity in the Nearer and Middle East, especially to the Asiatic hordes then threatening the West, he devoted himself incessantly from 1275 to 1286. In 1286 Arghun, the Ilkhan who ruled Persia, sent a request to the pope through the Nestorian monk, Rabban Bar Sauma, to send Catholic missionaries to the Court of the Great Khan (Mongol emperor) of China, Kúblaí Khan (1260–94), who was alleged to be well disposed toward Christianity. Pope Nicholas IV received the letter in 1287 and entrusted John with the important mission to Farther China, where about this time Venetian lay traveller Marco Polo still remained.

In 1289 John revisited the Papal Court and was sent out as papal legate to the Great Khan, the Ilkhan of Persia, and other leading personages of the Mongol Empire, as well as to the Emperor of Ethiopia. He started on his journey in 1289, provided with letters to Arghun, to the great Emperor Kúblaí Khan, to Kaidu, Prince of the Tatars, to the King of Armenia and to the Patriarch of the Jacobites. His companions were the Dominican Nicholas of Pistoia and the merchant Peter of Lucalongo. He reached Tabriz (in Iranian Azerbeijan), then the chief city of Mongol Persia, if not of all Western Asia.

From Persia they moved down by sea to India, in 1291, to the Madras region or "Country of St Thomas" where he preached for thirteen months and baptized about one hundred persons; his companion Nicholas died. From there Montecorvino wrote home, in December 1291 (or 1292), the earliest noteworthy account of the Coromandel Coast furnished by any Western European. Travelling by sea from Nestorian Meliapur in Bengal, he reached China in 1294, appearing in the capital "Cambaliech" or Khanbaliq (now Beijing), only to find that Kúblaí Khan had just died, and Temür (1294–1307) had succeeded to the Mongol throne. Though the latter did apparently not embrace Christianity, he threw no obstacles in the way of the zealous missionary. Very soon, John won the confidence of the Yuan dynasty ruler in spite of the opposition of the Nestorians who had already settled there under the name of Jingjiao/Ching-chiao .

In 1299 John built a church at Khanbaliq (now Beijing) and in 1305 a second church opposite the imperial palace, together with workshops and dwellings for two hundred persons. He gradually bought from heathen parents about one hundred and fifty boys, from seven to eleven years of age, instructed them in Latin and Greek, wrote psalms and hymns for them and then trained them to serve Mass and sing in the choir. At the same time he familiarized himself with the native language, preached in it, and translated the New Testament and the Psalms into the Uyghur used commonly by the Mongol ruling class in China. Among the six thousand converts of John of Montecorvino was a Nestorian Ongut prince named George, allegedly of the race of Prester John, a vassal of the great khan, mentioned by Marco Polo.

John wrote letters of 8 January 1305 and 13 February 1306, describing the progress of the Roman mission in the Far East, in spite of Nestorian opposition; alluding to the Roman Catholic community he had founded in India, and to an appeal he had received to preach in "Ethiopia" and dealing with overland and oversea routes to "Cathay," from the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf respectively.

After he had worked alone for eleven years, the German Franciscan Arnold of Cologne was sent to him (1304 or 1303) as his first colleague. In 1307 Pope Clement V, highly pleased with the missionary's success, sent seven Franciscan bishops who were commissioned to consecrate John of Montecorvino archbishop of Peking and summus archiepiscopus 'chief archbishop' of all those countries; they were themselves to be his suffragan bishops. Only three of these envoys arrived safely: Gerardus, Peregrinus and Andrew of Perugia (1308). They consecrated John in 1308 and succeeded each other in the episcopal see of Zaiton (Quanzhou), which John had established. In 1312 three more Franciscans were sent out from Rome to act as suffragans, of whom one at least reached East Asia.

For the next 20 years the Chinese-Mongol mission continued to flourish under his leadership. A Franciscan tradition that about 1310 John of Montecorvino converted the new Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, also called Khaishan Kuluk (he was also the third Emperor of the Yuan dynasty; 1307–1311) is disputed. His mission unquestionably won remarkable successes in North and East China. Besides three mission stations in Peking, he established one near Amoy harbour, opposite Formosa island (Taiwan).

John of Montecorvino translated the New Testament into Uyghur and provided copies of the Psalms, the Breviary and liturgical hymns for the Öngüt. He was instrumental in teaching boys the Latin chant, probably for a choir in the liturgy and with the hope that some of them might become priests.

He converted Armenians in China and Alans to Roman Catholicism in China.

John of Montecorvino died about 1328 in Peking. He was apparently the only effective European bishop in medieval Peking. Even after his death, the mission in China endured for the next forty years.

Togun Themur,the last Mongol (Yuan dynasty) emperor of China, sent an embassy to the French Pope Benedict XII in Avignon, in 1336. The embassy was led by a Genoese in the service of the Mongol emperor, Andrea di Nascio, and accompanied by another Genoese, Andalò di Savignone.These letters from the Mongol ruler represented that they had been eight years (since Montecorvino's death) without a spiritual guide, and earnestly desired one. The pope replied to the letters, and appointed four ecclesiastics as his legates to the khan's court. In 1338, a total of 50 ecclesiastics were sent by the Pope to Peking, among them John of Marignolli. In 1353 John returned to Avignon, and delivered a letter from the great khan to Pope Innocent VI. Soon, the Chinese rose up and drove the Mongols from China, thereby establishing the Ming Dynasty (1368). By 1369, all Christians, whether Roman Catholic or Syro-Oriental, were expelled by the Ming rulers.

Six centuries later, Montecorvino acted as the inspiration for another Franciscan, the Blessed Gabriele Allegra to go to China and complete the first translation of the Catholic Bible into Chinese in 1968.

Jordanus (fl. 1280-c. 1330), distinguished as Jordan of Severac (Latin: Jordanus de Severac; Occitan: Jordan de Séverac; French: Jourdain de Séverac; Italian: Giordano di Séverac) or Jordan of Catalonia (Latin: Jordanus Catalanus; Catalan: Jordà de Catalunya), was a Catalan Dominican missionary and explorer in Asia known for his Mirabilia Descripta describing the marvels of the East. He was the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Quilon, the first Catholic diocese in India.

Jordanus was perhaps born at Sévérac-le-Château, north-east of Toulouse. Possibly a disciple of Jerome de Catalonia, also known as Hieronymus Catalani,in 1302 Jordanus may have accompanied St Thomas of Tolentino, via Negropont, to the East; but it is only in 1321 that we definitely discover him in western India, in the company of Thomas and his companions. Ill-luck detained them at Thane in Salsette Island, near Bombay; and here Jordanus's companions were killed on 8 and 11 April 1321.

Jordanus, escaping, worked some time at Bharuch, in Gujarat, near the Nerbudda estuary, and at Suali (?) near Surat; to his fellow-Dominicans in north Persia he wrote two letters — the first from Gogo in Gujarat (12 October 1321), the second from Thane (24 January 1323/4) describing the progress of this new mission. From these letters we learn that Roman attention had already been directed, not only to the Bombay region, but also to the extreme south of the Indian peninsula, especially to Columbum, Quilon or Kollam in later Travancore; Jordanus' words may imply that he had already started a mission there before October 1321.

From Catholic traders Jordanus had learnt that Ethiopia (i.e. Abyssinia and Nubia) was accessible to Western Europeans; at this very time, as we know from other sources, the earliest Latin missionaries penetrated thither. Finally, the Epistles of Jordanus, like the contemporary Secreta of Marino Sanuto (1306–1321), urge the Pope to establish a Christian fleet upon the Indian seas.

Jordanus, between 1324 and 1328 (if not earlier), probably visited Kollam and selected it as the best centre for his future work; it would also appear that he revisited Europe about 1328, passing through Persia, and perhaps touching at the great Crimean port of Soidaia or Sudak. He was appointed a bishop in 1328 and nominated by Pope John XXII in his bull Venerabili Fratri Jordano to the see of Columbum or Kollam (Quilon) on 21 August 1329. This diocese was the first Roman Catholic one in the whole of the Indies, with jurisdiction over modern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, and Sri Lanka. It was created on 9 August by the decree Romanus Pontifix. Together with the new bishop of Samarkand, Thomas of Mancasola, Jordanus was commissioned to take the pallium to John de Cora, archbishop of Sultaniyah in Persia, within whose province Kollam was reckoned; he was also commended to the Christians of south India, both east and west of Cape Comorin, by Pope John.

Either before going out to Malabar as bishop, or during a later visit to the west, Jordanus probably wrote his Mirabilia, which from internal evidence can only be fixed within the period 1329–1338; in this work he furnished the best account of Indian regions, products, climate, manners, customs, fauna and flori given by any European in the Middle Ages — superior even to Marco Polo's. In his triple division of the Indies, India Major comprises the shorelands from Malabar to Cochin China; while India Minor stretches from Sind (or perhaps from Baluchistan) to Malabar; and India Tertia (evidently dominated by African conceptions in his mind) includes a vast undefined coast-region west of Baluchistan, reaching into the neighborhood of, but not including, Ethiopia and fictitious Prester John's domain. Jordanus' Mirabilia contains the earliest clear African identification of Prester John, and what is perhaps the first notice of the Black Sea under that name; it refers to the author's residence in India Major and especially at Kollam, as well as to his travels in Armenia, north-west Persia, the Lake Van region, and Chaldaea; and it supplies excellent descriptions of Parsee doctrines and burial customs, of Hindu ox-worship, idol-ritual, and suttee, and of Indian fruits, birds, animals and insects. After 8 April 1330 we have no more knowledge of Bishop Jordanus I.

Siddhartha Sharma,in Carpenters and Kings:Western Christianity and the Idea of India has discussed,the travelogue,Mirabilia Descripta, of Jordanus.lacks the real picture of the India;Jordanus found that the men of India went to war in their loincloths, with a small shield and a spear, an observation made by Giovanni before him. He appears to not have met or studied the great armies in the interior, nor does he seem to have been interested in the formidable arms and armour of indigenous soldiers or Turkish cavalrymen, or the flourishing export trade of Indian steel for swords and other weapons to the Middle East.Jordanus did not describe the funerals of the poor, but he did witness the custom of sati, which was also noted in some detail by Ibn Battuta.Jordanus was also the first European to meet and observe the Parsi community of India along the coast of Gujarat and the northern Konkan region. Speaking of the different kinds of funerals in the subcontinent, he talked of these people who neither burnt nor buried their dead but cast them into massive towers without roofs, where carrion birds would eat the bodies.

Most Indians were idol worshippers, although Jordanus found that Muslims had made considerable inroads from Sindh just prior to his arrival. He wrote of numerous Hindu temples and Syrian Christian churches which had been destroyed or converted into mosques.Jordanus seems to have visited many Hindus temples and held discussions with the priests about their beliefs. The discussions were amicable and instructive enough for him.Jordanus was fascinated by the multitude of Hindu gods and their forms, and the kinds of idols worshipped in the land. But above all these gods, there was supposed to be a single, all-powerful deity, according to what he was told by his sources. Jordanus was also told by Hindu scholars that the age of the world, by their reckoning, was 28,000 years, which was considerably lower than what the Puranas composed in the Middle Ages hold, but was still longer than the same according to biblical reckoning.Missionaries would be treated with warmth and respect by Hindus across the land, and their safety would be ensured. Whenever a Hindu chose to be baptised, the people or the authorities would not create any hindrance or persecute either the convert or the missionary. This freedom, said the Dominican, was common to Hindu and Mongol societies and among other people east of Persia in his time. While all Hindus honoured cattle like their own parents, most also worshipped them with the reverence seen for their gods. In most regions, the act of slaughtering cattle was considered as terrible a crime as parricide. A person who had murdered five men was more likely to receive a mitigated sentence than someone who had killed a cow.

Somewhere along the Saurashtra coast or in northern Konkan, Jordanus was told of a prophecy the Indians had: that the Latin Christians would, one day, rule the world!

© Ramachandran 

ANTHROPOLOGY OF SYRIAN CHRISTIANS 2

The Jesuits Branded it Nestorianism

Kodungallur was called Cranganur by the Portuguese, and is situated at a distance of 20 miles north of Cochin. This was one of the earliest settlements of the Jews, Christians and the Muhammadans. Within a distance of two miles is the island of Malankara, held sacred as the landing place of St. Thomas. It also gives the name of the diocese. The church erected by the Apostle is no longer there, nor has any vestige of its former glory survived. Antonio de Gouveia ( 1575-1628)  mentions that there was a Syrian Church there at the end of the fifteenth century, and that it bore testimony to the population, wealth and power of the Syrian Christian community in ancient times.In 1536, the Muhammadans destroyed and burned the shrine of St. Thomas. Immediately afterwards the King of Cranganur gave the land to the Portuguese, who on the same spot built a church dedicated to St Thomas.

Jornada of Gouvea

It is also said that there were two churches, the upkeep of which was borne by the Portuguese ; and that there many native converts were engaged in their service, The clergy must have come either from St. Francis Vincent College, established in 1540, or from that of St. Francis in Goa founded in 1541 for candidates from Canara, the Deccan, Malabar and other places.

Quilon is called Kollam by the natives. It commands one of the entrances into the beautiful backwater of Travancore. Tradition says that St. Thomas preached there, and in after times a party of Christian immigrants from Syria landed in the neighbourhood of the modern town, a place now engulfed in the sea, just as a similar party did at Cranganur.Whether they came for the purpose of trade or were driven to seek shelter from the sword of Muhammad or for other reasons cannot now be determined.

Parur,Kokkamangalam ( South Pallippuram),Niranam,Chavil ( Ranni) and Palur ( Chavakkad) are the other Syrian Christian settlements.

By A D 505 the churches on both sides of the peninsula lost their Dravidian liturgy.

Mention is also made by some Portuguese writers about the persecution of Christians at Mylapore after the death of the Apostle and about the flight of the survivors thence to the Malabar Coast to join their Christian brethren there. There were then many Christian families cn the south-western coast, subject to the native princes who treated them well .The new arrivals settled partly in Travancore, and partly among the ghats on the confines of the ancient kingdom of Calicut about a hundred and fifty miles away from the former, and by reason of losing contact with the Christians, lost their name, while those in Travancore kept their faith owing to their having received it from the Apostle until it was polluted by Nestorian errors.

There were also the apostates (Mani-gramakkar) that arose from the preachings of the Manikka Vachakar. Regarding the history and government of the Syrian Church dining the first few centuries, there is no authentic information. Reference is made to Frumentius with episcopal authority in South India about 325 AD; but this is denied by Hough who states that the Bishop was in Ethiopia and not in India. At the Nicene Council 325 A D, one of the bishops signed the decrees as John Bishop of Persia and Great India. Of this bishop nothing is known except that lie was a Persian bishop, and that his diocese might be near the Indus. 

Catholics believed that the ancient apostolic church of India found Syrio-Chaldean bishops and Syrio-Chaldean liturgy before the arrival of the Syrian colony headed by Thomas Cana in 345 A D. This colony had only reinforced the Christian community already in existence in Malabar, but did not give to the community either the title or Syriac liturgy. From this it may be seen, that the early Christians had been reinforced by the refugees from Mylapore and by the followers of Thomas Cana and others. 

When the Syrian church emerges into history, it is known as the Nestorian branch of the Asiatic Church. Nestorius, who was a Syrian by birth, was educated at Antioch, where as presbyter, he became celebrated during his youth, for his asceticism, orthodoxy and eloquence. On the death of Sisinnius, Patriarch of Constantinople, this distinguished preacher of Antioch was appointed to the vacant See by the Emperor Theodosius II, and was consecrated Patriarch in A D 428. 

In the 5th century the question as to how the two natures are united in Christ, called forth two disturbing heresies on the dogma of the redemption, the germ of which had been already laid as there had ever been opposing tendencies on the above named question between the Alexandrians and the. Antiochians, Theodore of Mopsuestia, a scholar of Antioch, relying on the duality of natures in Christ, was led to suppose also two persons in him, whose natures he supposed united by an exterior bond, while to each he ascribed a peculiar subsistence proper to itself alone, so that it was in a figurative sense that Christ could be called one person. These false principles were adopted by Leporius, a monk of Massiha, in Gaul A D 426; but they were vigorously promulgated by Nestorius. He maintained that m Jesus Christ there were two persons: a human person born of Virgin Mary; and the divine person that is the eternal Word.

Dutch Ships at Kodungallur,1708

In consequence of this error he denied to the Blessed Virgin the title of Theotokos or Mother of God contrary to the Roman Catholic doctrine which confesses Mary to be the Mother of the divine person in whom are intimately and indissolubly united bv what is called the hypostatic union, the divine and human person. For this he' was condemned and excommunicated by the third Oecumenical Synod at Ephesus in A D 431. Nestorianism was soon suppressed in the Roman Empire. The Emperor Zeno ordered Syrus, Bishop of Kdessa, to purge the Diocese of that heresy, in A D 489, and the Nestorians were forced to seek refuge across the Roman boundaries into Persia. Teachers and students migrated into Persia where they founded a school in Nisbis which for a long time enjoyed considerable celebrity. They found refuge and protection with St. Thomas Barsumas, Bishop of Nisbis, who spread Nestorianism in Persia.

Favoured by the Persian kings, the number of adherents continued to increase. At last at a Synod held in Seleucia in AD 498, the Persian Church wholly separated from the orthodox in the Roman Empire and adopted the name of the Chaldean Christians. Their Patriarch bore the title of Yazeclich. From Persia the Nestorian Church spread to India, where its adherents are called St. Thomas Christians. They spread as far as China.And 'it is quite certain," says Bishop Medlycott, "that at the time of the visit of Cosmos to India (A D 530 to 535) these churches as also the churches in India were holding the Nestorian doctrine of their bishops and priests."

Nor does this historical fact cause surprise, when we take into consideration, the opportunities, the bold attitude and the violent measures adopted by the promoters of this heresy after expulsion from the Roman Empire. In A D 530 to 535, there was a Nestorian prelate presiding at Kalyan over her future destiny. The bishops, priests and deacons, in India, and Ceylon, were the subjects of the Persian Metropolitan who was a Nestorian. Hence by the year 530, the Indian Christians had all been captured in the Nestorian net.In A D 630 to 660, Jesujabus of Adjabene claimed authority over India, and replaced Simeon of Rayardshir, the Metropolitan of Persia, and so deprived that church of her Ministry. In A D 714 to 728, Saliba Zacha and other Nestorian Patriarchs raised the See of India, among the exempted, which, owing to distance from the Patriarchal See, should, in future, send letters of commission but once in six years. This ruling was subsequently incorporated into a synodal canon. Looking into the traditions of the St. Thomas Christians, it will be found that all their prelates came from Babylon, the ancient residence, as they say, of the Patriarchs or the Catholicos of the Fast. It is further known and acknowledged by them, that whenever they remained deprived of a Bishop fcr a long time they used to send messengers to that patriarchate for bishops. Sufficient proof of this practice has been given above; and, when discussing the arrival of four bishops in A D 1504, the Holy See was fully aware that the Malabar Christians were under the control of the Nestorian Patriarch. When Julian III gave Suluka, his bull of domination as the Catholic Chaldean Patriarch, he distinctly laid down the extent of jurisdiction which had been claimed and controlled by his late Nestorian predecessor. 

 Angamali is described as the last of the Nestorian Syrio- Chaldaic Church, and Mar Abraham is said to be the last Nestorian bishop of Angamali. " We are quite ready," said Father Dahlmann, " to believe that the Nestorianism during long periods was latent and probably unconscious, and that also a good deal of animus, with which zeal for the purity of the faith had little to do, was shown against the Malabar bi- shops by the Portuguese of Goa. " None the less, there seems to be no sufficient evidence of the preaching of St. Thomas in this part of India, and in default of this, the probabilities are in favour of the fact that the Christian community on the coasts was of Nestorian origin. The Nestorianism of Si-Ngan Fou inscription in the heart of China is no longer disputed and the ancient seventh century Crosses at Kottayam and Mylapore with their Pahlevi lettering are suggestive of son e similar influences. 

 
In the works of most of the Protestants and Catholic writers it is unanimously asserted that their Church was Nestorian till 1509. Geddes, 1694, La Croze 1724, Buchanan 1814, Hough 1819, Whitehouse, Milne Kae 1892, and others affirm in the clearest terms that after the first four centuries, the Syrian Church fell into Nestorian heresy and was brought back under the authority of Koine by the indefatigable zeal of Archbishop Menezes. Gouvea 1606, D'Souza 1710, Joseph Asseman 1728, Le Quien 1740, Raulin 1745, Fra Bartolomeo and several Latin missionaries have persistently maintained the same. In short, all those who have written on this subject are agreed in branding the Syrian Church with the stigma of Nestorian heresy.

Nestorius,1688 sketch by Romeyn de Hooghe

Another kind of heresy that found its way to India was that of Eutyches, a zealous' adherent of Cyril in opposition to Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus in A D 431. But Eutyches in opposing the doctrine of Nestorius went beyond Cyril and others and affirmed, that after the union of the two natures, the humnn and the divine, his humanity was absorbed in His divinity. After several years of controversy the question was finally decided at the Council of Chalcedon in A D 451, when it was declared, in opposition to the doctrine of Eutyches, that the two natures were united in Christ, but without any alteration, absorption or confusion, or in other words in the person of Christ there were two natures, the human and the divine, each perfect in itself, but there was only one person- Eutyehes was excommunicated and he died in exile. 

Those who would not subscribe to the doctrines declared at Chalcedon were condemned as heretics: then they seceded and afterwards gathered themselves around different centres which were Syria. Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Cyprus ,Palestine, Armenia, Egypt and Abyssinia. The Armenians embraced the Eutvchian theory of divinity and humanity being one compound nature in Christ. The west Syrians or the natives of Syria proper, to whom the Syrians of this coast trace their origin, adopted, after having renounced the doctrines of Nes- torius, the Eutychian tenet. Through the influence of Severus,Patriarch of Antioch, they gradually became monophysite. The monophysite sect was suppressed by the Emperors, but in the sixth century there took place the great Jacobite revival of monophysite doctrine under James Banheus better known as Jacobus Zanzalus who united the various divisions into which the monophysites had separated themselves into one Church which, at the present day, exists under the name of the Jacobite church. The head of the Jacobite church claims the rank and prerogative of the Patriarch of Antioch, a title claimed by no less than three church dignitaries.

Leaving it to subtle theologians to settle the disputes, we may briefly define the position of the Jacobites in Malabar in respect of the above controversies. While they accept the qualifying epithets pronounced by the decree passed at the Council of Chalcedon in regard to the union of two natures in Christ, Ihey object to the use of the word two in referring to the same. So far they arc practicably at one with the Armenians, for they also condemn the Eutychian doctrine; and a Jacobite candidate for holy orders in the Syrian Church has, among other things, to take an oath denouncing Eutyehes and his teachers. 

Prevalence of the Nestorian heresy among the Syrian Christians already referred to, is being denied by the Romo  Syrians, who say that the Portuguese missionaries, bishops, priests and writers are completely mistaken in styling them as Nestorians in belief; and because of the false report all the subsequent writers continued to call them so. Further, the word "Nestorian" is commonly applied to the Syrio Chaldaic language. After the spread of Nestorianism in the eastern countries, the language of the people which was then Syro- Chaldean underwent certain modifications of character and pronunciation and came to be know n as Nestorian. Ncstorian and Chaldean were on that account used as convertible terms. In support of this contention the Romo-Syrians maintain that there always had been a small body of the Chaldeans of Mesopotomia who remained true to their faith and from them they received their bishops. They were Chaldeans of an oriental rite in communion with Rome and holding the Catholic faith. They contend that the Portuguese did not convert them irom any heresy but only made them submit to the jurisdiction of the bishops of the Latin rite having cut off their relation with the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon. They say that the saints were notoriously keen in detecting heresy and maintained that the aged bishop described by St. Francis as asking for indulgences could not have been in schism. 

Further, it is pointed out that the Portuguese garrison at Cannanore read the Syrian Mass of the Bishops, and in A D 1348 the Syrian Christians at Quilon paid money to John Marignolli (1290-1360) as the Pope Clement's legate. *

It is also said that Nestorianism is very loosely applied by the Portuguese historians, and often denotes orientals and not heretics. Further, on many occasions, the Portuguese priests came to Syrian Churches, and had their masses offered in them, and in turn, the Syrian priests also offered their masses in the churches belonging to the Portuguese, and on many occasions the former heard the confession of the Syrians and gave them Holy Communion- Further, the early travellers to India — the Alexandrian Cosmos Indicopleustus who passed by the Malabar Coast, the Ambassadors Sighelm and Athelstan of Alfred the Croat, and the Venetian traveller,make no reference to the prevalence of Nestorianism. Many other arguments are adduced by the Romo-Syrians in support of this contention, and a few monographs are published in this connection. They now deny the credit of the Portuguese in the conversion of the Syrian Christians to the Roman Catholic faith. As the treatment of the subject is purely ethnological, and not historical, it is not our intention to enter into the merits of the controversy.

 Very little is known of the history of the Syrian Church for six centuries prior to the advent of the Portuguese. During this period the Syrian Christians had very much fallen oft in ceremonial purity. For, as observed by Sir William Hunter, " For a thousand years from the fifth to the fifteenth century, the Jacobite sect dwelt in the middle of the Nestorianism of Central Asia so that both the Nestorian and the Jacobite bishops must have accepted the invitations of the Syrian Christians in Malabar, who never troubled themselves about the subtle disputations and doctrinal differences that divided their co-religionists in Europe and Asia Minor.They were on this account unable to distinguish between Nestorianism and any other form of Christianity. Further, speaking of the Malabar Church at this period, Gibbon says, " Their separation from the Western World had left them in ignorance of the improvements or corruptions of a thousand years; and their conformity to the practices of the fifth century would equally disappoint the prejudice of a Papist and a Protestant". Dr. Day refers to the arrival in India of the Jacobite and Syrian bishops who built churches and looked after the religious affairs of the Syrians. Marco Polo who visited India during the thirteenth century speaks of the prevalence of Nestorianism in India.

World map by Cosmas Indicopleustus

In the thirteenth century, the first Latin missionaries, John of Monte Carvino, Friar Jordanus and John de Marignoli, arrived in Malabar and made converts, but their labours were ineffectual. Until the advent of the Portuguese in India, the Syrian Church was following without any hindrance, in its ritual, practice and communion, a creed of the Syro-Chaldean Church of the East. Conquest and conversion were as close to the heart of the Portuguese as were enterprise and commerce. At first they gladly welcomed the Syrians as their brethren Christians, and never thought of interfering with the doctrines, but they were soon seen to change their attitude towards them. The latter had their mother church at Babylon with their Patriarch at Mosul in Asia Minor, and were of Nestorian faith. This was shocking to Portuguese, who, after the conquest of territories and the establishment of their capital or headquarters at Goa, soon entered on a policy of conversion, and their first care was to intercept all correspondence with the eastern Patriarchs and to prevent communion with them. Franciscan and Dominican friars and Jesuit fathers worked vigorously to win the Syrian Christians to the Roman Catholic communion. They established the Inquisition at Goa in 1500 and a Jesuit church and a seminary were founded at Vaippikotta (Chendamangalam), near Cranganur, in the latter of which was given instruction in theology, in Latin, Portuguese and Syriac languages. A college was also founded at Cranganur by Friar Vincent with the assistance of a Viceroy and a Bishop at Goa for the education of the Syrian youths in doctrine and ritual of Rome. St. Xavier wrote home to his royal patron urging him to endow this college intimating that it would be the means of greatly increasing the number of the adherents to his church . 

The Cranganur college became a failure, for the Syrians looked with suspicion even upon their own children who had been educated there, and refused to recognise the Romish orders that had been received, regarding their latinized habits and customs as so many marks of apostasy from the faith of their forefathers. Vincent intimated his intention to hand over this institution to the Jesuits in the event of his decease ; and Xavier wrote about it to the head of his own order, Ignatius Loyala  , and his friend Simon Roderick requesting them to procure indulgences from the Pope for the Syrian Christians. Thus under the immediate auspices of the pious and amiable Francis Xavier, the Jesuits were introduced to Malabar to work among the ancient Christian congregations.

The Jesuits were at first much more successful than Friar Vincent. The pupils were carefully instructed in Syriac and well grounded in the Romish faith, but their antipathy to Romanism was so strong that they would not utter a word against the ancient: dogmas and customs of the church of their forefathers or offer an apology for those of Rome. The Jesuits were completely defeated in their expectations, and this led to an open conflict with the Syrian Metrans (bishops) in which the most odious and tyrannical measures were adopted. The dignitaries of the Syrian Church refused to ordain students trained in the seminary. The whole plan of the campaign was arranged upon the appointment of Menezes, the new archbishop, of whom the Pope Clement VIII issued a brief dated, January 27, 1595, in which he was directed to make an inquisition into the crimes and errors of Mar Abraham, the Nestorian bishop of Angamali. In the event of the Nestorian bishop being found guilty of such tidings as he had been accused of, he was to be apprehended and secured in Goa.The Archbishop was to appoint a Vicar Apostolic of the Roman communion over Mar Abraham's bishopric, and upon his death, he was not to allow the bishop of Habylon to enter the Serra to succeed him. Menezes could not win over Mar Abraham to his side. He died in 1597, and was succeeded by an Archdeacon George who so far roused the Syrians, whose feelings were already strongly excited, that they resolved no longer to admit any Latin priests in their churches.

When Alex-de-Menezes, Archbishop of Goa, heard of the movement, he arrived at Cochin in January 26, 1599, where he was received with great pomp. He then visited the important Syrian churches and the seminary, and ordained as many as one hundred and fifty three priests. Armed with the terrors of the Inquisition, invested with the spiritual authority of the Pope, and encouraged in his efforts by the Portuguese king whose governors readily backed him up, he held the Synod at Diamper or Udayamperur on Sunday, June 20th, 1599, the third Sunday after Whitsuntide. The first session began with a solemn mass for the removal of schism and a sermon by himself on the same subject, after which, dressed in full pontificals and seated in his chair, he solemnly addressed the Synod ou business matters with the aid of a faithful and pious interpreter Jacob Kattanar who could interpret to the whole assembly fully to comprehend the wording of the decrees. After this all the clerical members of the Synod were compelled to swear a solemn oath in which they were directed to profess their faith not only in the Nicene creed, but in all those Romanish additions which are contain- ed in the creed of Pope Pious IV; and to swear to God that they would never receive into their church any bishop, archbishop, prelate, pastor or governor, unless expressly appointed by the bishop of Rome. Joseph Kattanar read the provision in Malayalam and the clergy repeated it after him on their knees. They were also advised individually to have their firm belief in the statements made above, and made to swear and protest to God by the Holy Gospel, and the Cross of Christ in proof thereof. The lay delegates were also then made to do the same " in their own name" and in the name of the people of the bishopric. Thus Archbishop Menezes and his Jesuit assistants had the satisfaction of having converted the whole church and made believers in the whole range of Tridentine dogma. Many other changes were also introduced The Syriac language was allowed, but the Syrian mass was altered at the Synod, and it is the one used by the Syro-Romans even to this day. The service books of the churches were expurgated and all Xestorian passages expunged. The popular Nestorian books were all destroyed. The doctrine of transubstantiation with all its attendant departures, doctrines containing penance and extreme unction, celibacy of the clergy, reformation of the church affairs, reformation of manners were all changed after the Romish fashion.

Menezes

After the Synod had passed all the decrees, Menezes delivered his final charge to the assembly. A procession was made round the church, during which Te Dcum was sung by choir and people. This ended, the Archbishop pronounced his benediction to which the Archdeacon responded aloud "Let us depart in peace" and Synod broke up. Thus the Synod of Udayamperur came to an end after a session of six days, in June 26, 1599. The Archbishop then spent two months in visiting and organising the churches, and soon after returned to Goa. But the Jesuit government became so intolerable to the Syrian Christians that they resolved to have a bishop of their own from the East and applied to Babylon, Alexandria, Antioeh and other headquarters, as if these ecclesiastics possessed the same creed. 

A man named Ahatalla, otherwise known as Mar Ignatius, was accordingly sent by the Patriarch of Antioch but was on the way intercepted by the Portuguese who secured him at Goa and shipped him off to Europe. According to another account he was either drowned in the Cochin harbour or burned at the Inquisition at Goa.This cruel deed so far provoked a large body of Syrians that they met in solemn conclave at the Coonan Cross at Mattancherry in Cochin, and with one voice renounced their allegiance to the Church of Rome. This incident marks an epoch in the history of the Syrian Church, and led to a separation of the community into two parties, viz,, the Pazhayakuru (the Syrian Romans) who adhered to the Church of Rome according to the Synod at Diamper, and the Puttenkuru, the Jacobite Syrians, who, after the Oath at the Coonan Cross, got Mar Gregory from Antioch, acknowledged the spiritual supremacy thereof. The former owed its foundation to the Archbishop Menezes, and the Syond at Diamper in 1599, and its reconciliation after the revolt to the Carmelite bishop Father Joseph of St. Mary, whom the Pope appointed in 1659, without the knowledge of the King of Portugal, as the Vicar Apostolic of Malabar. It retains in its services the Syrian language and ritual and acknowledges the spiritual authority of the Pope and the Vicar Apostolic. The members of this party are known as the Catholics of the Syrian rite to distinguish them from the converts direct from heathenism to the Latin church of the Roman missionaries.

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*John Margnoli:Giovanni de' Marignolli ( Johannes Marignola ) variously anglicized as John of Marignolli or John of Florence,was a notable 14th-century Catholic European traveller to medieval China and India.He reached Quilon in Easter week of 1348.

Edited By Ramachandran