The Relevance of the Ecclesial Identity of the Syro-Malabar Church
Is it not enough to have just Catholic faith? Is living the faith so important as having the faith?
These questions are being raised by a minority of youngsters today! Busy life, complexities of
job and family life, economic recession, struggle for existence, secularism, relativism,
consumerism, modernity, etc are some of the reasons for these questions. Even though for an
average Catholic, living the faith is as important as having the faith, the modern generations
look for convincing answers for these questions.
Going ahead further, the theme for our discussion this time is about the relevance of the
ecclesial identity of the Syro-Malabar Church in this modern world. This question is an
advanced version of having the faith and living the faith. If living the faith itself is a question
twinkling in the air, living the ecclesial identity of the Syro-Malabar Church might seem to be
much more irrelevant to the modern generation. This article is a humble attempt to
realistically and theoretically look into the relevance of the Ecclesial identity of the SyroMalabar
Church. Rather than discussing if either the religion or religious life is relevant or
important today, let us directly concentrate on the relevance of the ecclesial identity of the
Syro-Malabar Church which is the very scope of this article.
Syro-Malabar Ecclesial Identity
1. If God were to give option to the children to choose their parents, how chaotic the
situation would have been? It is the same if the parents were to choose their children. In
the divine providence, the children are born from the parents. Both the parents and
children accept them each other. It is unrealistic concept beyond imagination! The
omniscient God was wise enough not to do it. The Church is our spiritual mother, willed
by God to carry out his mission on this earth. God expects that we love this spiritual
mother as we love our biological parents. Through the divine providence, in the
Catholic Church there are 23 individual churches and one can enter this universal
Church only through an individual Church. Even when I say I am a Catholic, I should
belong to any of these 23 ritual churches. The Church convincingly teaches that one
obtains membership in the Church by birth. In other words, birth to a Catholic identity is
an abstract concept as the only realistic approach would be to understand the birth to a
particular ritual church!
2. When Jesus sent the apostles with the mission command, “Go to the whole world and
preach the gospel” he must have imagined and intended different forms of worship in
different parts of the world. Omniscient God surely knew that by the preaching of the
Gospel, the people would receive the same faith in Jesus, but the form of worship, the
explanation of the faith, the life style, the discipline, etc. would be different. In fact, the
same Jesus was proclaimed and the faith is the same in this person of Jesus. But the
people accepted the faith according to their cultural, religious, linguistic background.
3. India, in the first centuries AD, having a rich cultural, linguistic and religious tradition,
was famous among the world nations for its richness. Even till today, India is
appreciated not only for its spirit of tolerance and non-violence but also for its richness
of values, intelligence, deep rooted religiosity and spirituality. In other words,
Christianity getting sprouted in Indian soil is to be understood a perfect religion getting
its roots in a perfect soil.
4. Thomas the Apostle preached the gospel in the south India between AD 52 and 72 and
the people accepted the faith. We need to thank God that Christianity got its root in India
in the first century itself by the preaching of one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ.
Till the coming of Thomas, Jesus was unheard to Indians. The words and deeds of
Thomas, led India to receive Jesus. Is it not a wonder? Looking at the world scenario of
Catholicity, the Thomas Christians of India is one of the first groups of Christians, who
were christened much before many Europeans started hearing about Jesus.
5. For any small or big unit or community, for its real growth and strength, it should have
its own identity. Living the faith creates a spiritual bond among the Christians which not
only gives a sense of ‘we feeling’ but a self identity. Hence, the right perspective is to
understand and to live the ecclesial identity. In the whole Catholicism, receiving the
faith by the preaching of St. Thomas the apostle, to be part of the families converted by
the same apostle, to be the partakers of the St. Thomas Apostolic tradition is not to be
unimportantly considered.
6. The history of the St. Thomas Christians depicts that Indians never considered
Christianity as foreign religion as it was deeply rooted in the Indian culture. St. Thomas
Christians adapted and inculturated very well with the local culture and life style.
Spiritual patrimony of the St. Thomas Christians was traditionally handed over from
generation to generation through the ecclesial life and rich family traditions. Migration
should never be a reason for diluting this tradition but rather a chance for
evangelization by living this ecclesial identity.
7. The East Syrian liturgy, well accepted in the first centuries by the St. Thomas Christians,
was one of the first liturgical traditions got formed in the early times in Christianity. It
astonishes us to know the fact that East Syrian language is the written version of
Aramaic which was spoken by Jesus himself. As St. Thomas Christians, we have to be
faithful to our theological, liturgical, spiritual and ecclesial traditions.
8. The fact that the Thomas Christians were never defected from the Catholic communion
was another factor of the history that makes us to be proud Catholics. When most of the
Oriental Catholics went out from the Catholic communion and formed new noncatholic
life, it is significant that the majority St. Thomas Christians were always faithful
to the Catholic identity.
9. The spiritual traditions are not only related to the ecclesial life in general but to the
family traditions as well in particular. In order to get the depth on the ecclesial identity,
enumerating the ecclesial patrimony, family traditions and cultural observations are
very important.
10. Migrants are prone to the danger of getting disintegrated in the new soil, raising the
spiritual tradition so rich and antique. Surprising, the St. Thomas Catholic migrants
have always tried to uphold this identity, deciding for living this tradition and handing
over this patrimony for the future. This decision has brought naturally a meaning in
having the faith and living the faith life with the ecclesial identity which has brought a
deep sense of identity.
About the identity of the Syro-Malabar Church, a Church historian Rev. Fr. Placid
Podipara CMI, rightly said as “Christian in faith, Oriental in worship and Indian in
culture”. As St. Thomas Christians, we are called to live the faith and spirituality
received from Apostle St. Thomas and handed over to us through the tradition.
II Vatican Council (II Vat.) on the Ecclesial Identity
11. Almost all ecumenical synods treasured this ecclesial identity of the Catholic Church
and exhorted its faithful to cherish this special identity as something very important and
close to their heart. As the II Vat teaches “the Catholic Church holds in high esteem the
institutions, liturgical rites, ecclesiastical traditions and the established standards of the
Christian life of the Eastern Churches, for in them, distinguished as they are for their
venerable antiquity, there remains conspicuous the tradition that has been handed
down from the Apostles through the Fathers and that forms part of the divinely
revealed and undivided heritage of the universal Church.”
12. “The Holy Catholic Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, is made up of the
faithful who are organically united in the Holy Spirit by the same faith, the same
sacraments and the same government and who, combining together into various groups
which are held together by a hierarchy, form separate Churches or Rites. Between these
there exists an admirable bond of union, such that the variety within the Church in no
way harms its unity; rather it manifests it, for it is the mind of the Catholic Church that
each individual Church or Rite should retain its traditions whole and entire and
likewise that it should adapt its way of life to the different needs of time and place.”
13. All these different churches are “consequently of equal dignity, so that none of them is
superior to the others as regards rite and they enjoy the same rights and are under the
same obligations, also in respect of preaching the Gospel to the whole world.” Therefore
“means should be taken in every part of the world for the protection and advancement
of all the individual Churches”.
14. The Ecclesial identity “not only accords to this ecclesiastical and spiritual heritage the
high regard which is its due and rightful praise, but also unhesitatingly looks on it as the
heritage of the universal Church.”
15. II Vat. advises that “all members of the Eastern Rite should know and be convinced that
they can and should always preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established
way of life, and that these may not be altered except to obtain for themselves an organic
improvement. The faithful are bound to take part on Sundays and feast days in the
Divine Liturgy or, according to the regulations or custom of their own rite.”
All the official teachings of the Church make it clear that all the members of the Church
be faithful to their ecclesial identity.
Conclusion
The diversity of oriental ritual traditions is depicted to be rare beautiful flowers in the garden
of Catholicism. The attraction, richness and splendor of this garden is highly interrelated
with these rare breed flowers, which are mostly adored, loved, respected by all the beauty
lovers. Looking at God’s creation, one gets convinced that God is really a diversity worker.
Take any of his creation, all look different and unique. The different colours blend together to
an identity of a beautiful rainbow. Ecclesial difference is as well God’s brilliant plan.
These individual Churches differ in liturgy, ecclesiastical discipline, theological explanation
of faith and in spiritual heritage. The Church does not insist on the uniformity but it insists on
unity. Unity is not unification or uniformity but unity is possible also in diversity. Hence
living the ecclesial identity is not meant for disharmony or division or disunity rather for
manifesting the ecclesial richness, depth, beauty and diversity.
For us migrants, appreciating the divine providence in the ritual traditions is not enough. A
sincere effort to love the mother Church and to live the ecclesial identity is a challenge to the
migrant Syro-Malabar faithful. This core understanding of the Church will be appreciated
more by all as we sincerely try to know it better and experience it deeper.
