Reunion Of Archbishop Mar Ivanios With The Catholic Church And The Origin Of The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church
Section 1
Preliminary Correspondence With Syrian Catholic Patriarch And The Apostolic See Regarding Reunion
On the occasion of the visit of Metropolitan Mar Dionysius VI to the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch he met with the Syrian Catholic Bishop George Dallal in Baghdad and discussed with him about ecclesiastical matters. Subsequently, the Syrian Catholic Patriarch Rahmani sent a letter to Mar Dionysius VI proposing communion with the Catholic Church, and Mar Ivanios was asked to send a reply to the Patriarch. However, the first letter of reply dated 17 July 1925 was not sent directly by Mar Ivanios to the Patriarch, but by his secretary Father Jacob Kalapurackal (later bishop Jacob Mar Theophilos) to the secretary of Patriarch Rahmani in an unofficial manner (cf. document 1).
Hence the reply, although written by the Patriarch himself, was sent to the secretary of Mar Ivanios (document 2).
However, later Mar Ivanios consulted Mar Augustine Kandathil, Archbishop of Ernakulam (1923-1956), Mar James Kalassery, bishop of Changanacherry (1927-1949), and Mar Alexander Choolaparambil, bishop of Kottayam (1923-1951); all of them proposed him to establish direct contact with Rome for eventual reunion. Hence, in order to understand the position of the Apostolic See, on 1 November 1926 Mar Ivanios sent an unofficial memorandum (document 3), without any signature and name, but setting out clearly the kind of reunion he prospected. The memorandum was sent through Fr John Ribeiro, a Latin priest from the diocese of Quilon, who had his priestly formation at the Urban College of Propaganda Fide in Rome and who was leading a retired life at Mavelikkara, his native place. Fr John Ribeiro acted as a mediator between Mar Ivanios and the Apostolic Delegate from the beginning of the reunion movement until its conclusion.
Obviously, Fr John Ribeiro forwarded the memorandum of Mar Ivanios to Apostolic Delegate Edward Aloysius Mooney to be sent to the Holy See, but he decided to conduct a thorough study on the proposed reunion project before any further action. He sought the opinion of Aloysius Maria Benziger OCD, bishop of Quilon; Angel Maria Perez y Cecilia OCD, archbishop of Verapoly; and Mar Augustine Kandathil, archbishop of Emakulam. After obtaining the opinions of the mentioned three bishops, Apostolic Delegate Mooney prepared his own report and together with it he forwarded the memorandum of Mar Ivanios and the opinion of the bishops to the Congregation for the Eastern Church on 17 October 1927.
All these documents are presented except the brief writing of Archbishop Augustine Kandathil, which indicates only some problems that might arise for the Syro-Malabar Church as a result of the proposed reunion (it is omitted also because the same ideas are expressed also in another letter which will be subsequently reproduced).
At this point, we would like to make a clarification. The authors who previously dealt with the reunion of Mar Ivanios thought that the first memorandum was immediately sent to Rome and an unofficial reply with six questions was soon sent to Mar Ivanios, to which he responded with the second memorandum. Thomas Inchakkalody wrote: “As soon as the first memorandum, which was sent unofficially, was received in Rome, an unofficial reply comprising of six questions related to the Jacobite Church in Malankara was sent to Mar Ivanios from Rome through the Apostolic Delegate […]. The second memorandum with answers to the above questions was sent to Rome through the Apostolic Delegate in January 1927”.
Authors like Louis Moolaveetil, Silvester Kanjiramukalil, and Cyril Malancharuvil also state that an unofficial reply was sent from Rome in 1928 and besides the reply, a questionnaire on the Malankara Orthodox Church consisting of six questions was also sent through the Apostolic Delegate in India. According to the latter two authors, in response to the six questions, Mar Ivanios sent the second memorandum to Rome on 22 January 1927 or in January 1927. The chronological discrepancy is evident: the first unofficial reply of Rome to the first memorandum with the questionnaire was received in 1928, while the second memorandum consisting of the responses to the questionnaire was sent to Rome in January 1927.
As we have seen above, after the reception of the first memorandum, Apostolic Delegate Mooney did not send it immediately to Rome but made a profound study also consulting the Catholic bishops in South India. He sent the first memorandum to Rome only on 17 October 1927 with his forwarding letter and the opinion of the aforementioned bishops (documents 6-8). It is possible to rightly conclude that as a part of his study, Apostolic Delegate Mooney himself prepared the questionnaire and sent it to Mar Ivanios, in order to obtain necessary clarifications before proceeding further. The supplementary statements or the so-called second memorandum, required for the use of the Apostolic Delegate, were never sent to Rome. In the Roman archives, the second memorandum is not found; moreover, it is not mentioned in any of the numerous documents of the Holy See concerning reunion.
After the reception of the memorandum of Mar Ivanios and the report of the Apostolic Delegate, together with the opinion of the aforementioned bishops, at the audience of 13 November 1927, the Cardinal Luigi Sincero, Secretary of the Congregation for the Eastern Church informed the Holy Father of the prospected movement of reunion, especially of the content of the memorandum. In the light of the said audience on 12 December 1927, a memo was sent to the Apostolic Delegate Mooney in the Italian language, asking him to translate its essential content into English and to send it to Mar Ivanios (without any signature) through Fr. John Ribeiro. The Apostolic Delegate acted according to the indications, and the preliminary response to the Memorandum was sent to Mar Ivanios on 5 August 1929.