CONVERSION OF JACOBITES OF MALABAR NEAR

Flood of Them Comes After Archbishop and Bishop

(By Rev. Joseph C. Panjikaran, Ph. D., D. D.)

Ernakulam, India. – Events immediately following the reception into the Catholic Church of Archbishop Ivanios, the Jacobite prelate, at Quilon, recently, bring ever nearer to realization the total conversion of the Jacobite community in Malabar, which numbers 350,000 souls.

The conversion of Mar Ivanios, Syrian Jacobite Metropolitan of Bethany, and the Jacobite Bishop of Tiruvella, Mar Theophilos, who entered the Church with him, was followed the next day by the reception of a community of Jacobite Sisters, numbering more than a dozen, and a Jacobite community of monks.

These conversions were followed by those of two Rambans, the next claimants to the Jacobite Bishoprics, and also some of the leading laymen. News of the conversions has spread like wildfire and has stirred the whole of Christian and even pagan Malabar.

The answer to the situation is directly to be found in the Bethany movement in the Syrian Jacobite Church of Malabar. Belief is expressed by many students of the matter here that the movement, plus the remarkable recent conversions, constitutes a blow from which the schismatic Jacobite Church cannot rally, and that eventually the whole group will come into the Catholic Church. In any case, it is held certain that many more leading Jacobites will now become Catholics.

This Bethany movement, started by Mar Ivanios when he was the Rev. P. T. Geevarghese, is taking the same lines as the Tractarian movement led by Newman in England.

Mar Ivanios Is Leader Mar Ivanios is the leader of the movement. He is a master of arts of the Madras university and was the principal of the M. D. seminary, leading educational institution of the Syrian Jacobites of Malabar. While serving in that post, he received the offer of a professorship in the Divinity college of Serampore, Calcutta. He accepted the offer and went to Calcutta. A number of Malabar students then were flocking to Serampore and with some of these he began to lead a sort of monastic community life.

Mar Ivanios was the most learned of all the Jacobite Bishops of Malabar. He is 47 years old, strongly built, and a born leader.

His great idea was to start an Ashram of Jacobite monks following the rule of St. Basil in Malabar. With the help of Protestant friends he bought about 400 acres of land far in the interior of Malabar. Three persons who desired to lead a monastic life were welcomed.

The monks led a very regular life. They completely abstained from flesh and fish and lived only on vegetables. They dressed in Hindu Sanyasi (Kavi) robes.

They were self-sacrificing, pious and learned and devoted themselves to infusing some spiritual life into the Jacobite Church, which was torn by all sorts of dissensions and litigations. They were greatly esteemed by the people. Mar Ivanios told me the other day that when he was a simple priest he sometimes spent the whole night hearing Confessions.

To raise the standard of feminine education Mar Ivanios took some Jacobite girls to Barisol, Calcutta, and placed them with the High Church Protestant Sisters. In due course these girls returned to Malabar and started the Order of Bethany Sisters. Some of them are highly educated and hold university degrees. They conduct schools, maintain orphanages and have a press of their own, the Bethany printing house, Tiruvella. Mar Ivanios has been their chaplain all through.

Both communities, of monks and nuns, took the three vows, an innovation in the Jacobite Church of Malabar.

The next move was to start churches directly dependent only on Bethany. Meanwhile Mar Ivanios had been consecrated Metropolitan Archbishop of Bethany and Mar Theophilos, a Bethany monk, had been consecrated Jacobite Bishop of Tiruvella. With the endless litigation, quarrels and dissensions in the Jacobite Church, the people were getting tired and they gladly welcomed these Bethany churches where they could worship God in peace. Fifteen Bethany churches have been started thus far and land has been acquired for fifteen more in different places. When Mar Ivanios was in Calcutta, he had occasion to read Catholic books. Slowly he gathered a collection of Catholic books. The spiritual books that he used for the monks and sisters were for the most part Catholic. His studies convinced him that the Jacobite Syrian Church taught no heresy. The Malabar even retains the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, Mar Ivanios said, contained implicitly in its prayers and rituals. The belief in purgatory is deducible, he said, from the many prayers for the dead. They believe in the existence of the angels and even of guardian angels. They admit, I was told by him, even the Primacy of the Patriarch of Rome, whom they call Rees Patriarchese (Head Patriarch). These studies convinced Mar Ivanios and Mar Theophilos that the Catholic Church was the True Church and that the Jacobite Church was a schismatic body. He then entered into direct communication with Rome through His Excellency the Apostolic Delegate and the Bishop of Quilon, requesting Rome to allow them the use of the Syrian Jacobite liturgy which they had been using for more than 300 church years.

After a careful examination into their priesthood and their liturgical books, Rome granted them the use of their rite and confirmed Mar Ivanios as Metropolitan Archbishop of Bethany and Mar Theophilos as Bishop of Tiruvella. They and those who join them will depend directly on Rome. Their future clergy will be unmarried.

Though all this was done secretly yet somehow it became known. Some four months ago the Vicar General of Bethany, unable to stand the sting of conscience any longer, left Bethany and became a Catholic of the Syro-Malabar Rite. Meanwhile the Jacobites were roused and they tried to put every impediment possible in their way. They tried to get Mar Ivanios entangled in litigation over the Bethany properties. He was then staying on in the hope of getting as many as possible to come away with him when he made an open declaration of his Faith. One day at the Holy Sacrifice he had the inspiration to leave all and follow the Master in poverty and want. The monastic possessions which he thought it prudent to abandon entirely are worth nearly 400,000 rupees. He called the monks and told them of his resolve to leave Bethany immediately, leaving them to follow any course they desired. Most of the monks decided to follow the Bishops. The Archbishop is now literally poor.

On their way they were met by a Hindu Nair gentleman who asked them the cause of leaving Bethany. On hearing their story he offered them his own house for a lodging and donated to them five acres of land to build the new Bethany Ashram. Leaving the monks and the Junior Bishop there, Mar Ivanios came to Tiruvella and took up his quarters close to the house of the sisters to encourage them and make arrangements for their reception. All the sisters without a single exception decided to follow Mar Ivanios.

On September 20, Mar Ivanios and Mar Theophilos were received into the Catholic Church at Quilon by the Bishop of Quilon, assisted by the Bishop of Changanacherry. This was followed by the other conversions noted above.

The Jacobite Church in Malabar had its origin in the middle of the seventeenth century. Many attempts at reunion have been made in the past, but they never succeeded.

Editor’s Note: Though the Jacobite Church of Malabar began in the seventeenth century, the sect goes back to the Monophysite heresy, condemned at Chalcedon in 451. Therefore, the fact that these people of India are found today with doctrines that are Catholic is a tremendous proof of the Apostolicity of our Faith.

Copyright: The Nebraska Register, Grand Island, Nebraska, Sun, Nov 16, 1930