The article states there are 3.5 million Orthodox Christian living in India. I had no idea that the number was that large.
Also, that's just the independent Malankara/Indian Orthodox Church. If you include the group under Antiochan jurisdiction, it bumps up to around 5-6 million.
There is no way that MOSC is that large, both of our churches give such bloated figures and unfortunately us kids in Canada/USA believe whatever the hierarchy tells us. Combined the Jacobite/Orthodox church in Kerala has a maximum population 2 million. I believe the last census puts us at around 1 750 000. The Syro-Malabar Catholic church has about 3.9 million members (note it is the 2nd largest eastern catholic church after the ukranian catholics).
Huh, I was going by the Wikipedia numbers, which pegs the
MOSC at 3 Million and the
MSOC at 2 Million.
I think you're right though since I just checked the the MOSC Sabha
site and it says only 2 Million. As for the MSOC, I can't find anything reliable but I don't think they're bigger than the MOSC so that moves the total number down to maximum 4 Million.
Remember that Wikipedia is a user edited encyclopaedia that anyone can change to their liking. The population statistics I'm using are from the Malayala Manorama Year Book, one of the most trusted sources for demographic information in the country (NB: Malayala Manorama is owned by a member of the MOSC, if they wanted to they could easily publish false values and none would be the wiser) As for the Jacobite church being smaller, its hard to tell. The MOSC has the greater number of parishes in Kerala, but in terms of per congregation population MSOC is larger as we have bigger & older parishes such Piravom Pally, Manarcaudu, Mulunthurthy, Kolencherry etc. If these population values were to be true, it would mean that a majority of our church's members reside outside India, but I doubt that is the case.
