Across Rites, Beyond Borders: Two Malankara Bishops Meet in Brisbane

Brisbane, Australia – In an age when many bonds are fleeting, it is both rare and moving to witness the quiet endurance of a friendship rooted not in convenience, but in Christ. Such was the moment when His Excellency Most Rev. Dr. Antony Mor Silvanos, Bishop of the Major Archiepiscopal Curia and Apostolic Visitor to Oceania of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, paid a fraternal visit to His Grace Dr. Yuhanon Mor Dioscoros, Assistant Metropolitan of the Asia-Pacific Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, during the Passion Week services at St George Indian Orthodox Church, Brisbane.

Their meeting, held not under the gilded domes of Rome—as it once had been during their shared days of study—but in the more modest, prayerful setting of a suburban parish in Australia, was marked by warmth, mutual honour, and the unmistakable joy of kinship that defies ecclesial boundaries.

In Brisbane, amidst the solemnity of Holy Week, the two prelates—who had once walked the same academic corridors in Rome—found themselves reunited, not merely as bishops of sister Churches, but as old friends. Their conversation, we are told, moved freely between fond memories and deeper reflections on the lives of their faithful across Oceania.

That such a reunion took place during the Passion Week—a time in which we contemplate the sacrificial love of Christ—offered a subtle but striking reminder: that unity, however partial or fragile in our human grasp, finds its deepest expression not in institutional alignment, but in the love that surpasses division.

As members of the broader Malankara Christian heritage, we rejoice in such encounters, which reflect a profound truth of our shared apostolic faith: that grace can gather us across liturgical lines, across histories both wounded and whole.

Let us continue to pray for both shepherds as they serve their flocks with fidelity and vision—His Excellency Mor Silvanos, guiding the Syro-Malankara Catholic faithful in Oceania, and His Grace Mor Dioscoros, tending to the Malankara Orthodox community. May their friendship be a signpost to us all of what can be when we choose fraternity over formality.