More on Indian Church History (split from "Rome creates parallel...")

[paul2004]

Dear Mathew, What is your recommendation for the future in India? Does it benefit to move like this or some improvements?

-Paul

[Mor Ephrem]

This thread, despite my request, continues to go off topic, so I will probably lock it later tonight.  If you would like to continue this conversation in a different thread, let me know.  Thanks!

[dhinuus]

Dear Mathew, What is your recommendation for the future in India? Does it benefit to move like this or some improvements?

-Paul

Dear Paul,
It does not benefit the Oriental Orthodox Church in India to move under the current situation. The situation now is very bad. We defenitely need to change. If not the Oriental Orthodox Church in India will be history very soon, those who like to be in an Apostilic Church will become Malankara Catholic (RC chuch following Syriac Rite) and the others will get influenced by protestant / pentecostal movements.

I had already given my recommendation in one of my earlier posts. I am repeating it below.

Unity has to happen in stages. The first step is to stop all mutual accusations and civil court cases for control of parishes. Let the side which has the majority in each parish control each parish. Let us remove all schisms and establish communion. Let that continue for some time, Let all the old wounds heal. This was what was proposed by H.H Zakka I, when he visited India in 2004. He went on public record to say that he is prepared to remove all schism and accept the IOC as a sister oriental orthodox church if all civil court cases will end.

I know this is not the same as full oriental orthodox unity and a united synod.  But this would be the first step. We cannot expect anyone to completely abandon their current position and all of a sudden come and tow a different line. Even though members of the Holy Church, the members are motal men, who are sinners. All of us have ego and pride. No body will all of a sudden come and say my position was wrong. The fact is in this case nobody's position is 100% wrong. There are sins of omission and comission from either side.

So we will have to attain unity in stages.

The Holy Spirit will work wonders when there is an atmosphere of love. Slowly a united Synod will emerge.

In Christ..
Mathew G M

[paul2004]

This was what was proposed by H.H Zakka I, when he visited India in 2004. He went on public record to say that he is prepared to remove all schism and accept the IOC as a sister oriental orthodox church if all civil court cases will end.

I know this is not the same as full oriental orthodox unity and a united synod. But this would be the first step. We cannot expect anyone to completely abandon their current position and all of a sudden come and tow a different line. Even though members of the Holy Church, the members are motal men, who are sinners. All of us have ego and pride. No body will all of a sudden come and say my position was wrong. The fact is in this case nobody's position is 100% wrong. There are sins of omission and comission from either side.

So we will have to attain unity in stages.

The Holy Spirit will work wonders when there is an atmosphere of love. Slowly a united Synod will emerge.

In Christ..
Mathew G M

Dear Mathew, I am in agreement with most of your thoughts. But you cannot blame the IOC alone for the court cases. It should be understood as a continuation of historic events.  In the present situation, IOC do have rights in some of the ancient parishes (i.e. if the aim is to have an independent Jacobite church), to use the churches on few Sundays of a month.  I am not interested in parting based on majority decision. Church is not pure democracy, rather it is democracy + authority of the Bishop/Synod.

I am not in agreement with your version of the comments of H.H. Zakka 1. H.H. Zakka 1 said that the concept of having an "Indian Church" is strange. Iin Malayalam "Bharathiya Sabha enathu oru Vichithramaya ashayam" (Bharathiya Sabha - Indian Church, Vichitram - strange).  We do not agree to this. Also H.H. Zakka 1 DID NOT  say anything about Oriental Orthodoxy, rather he was drawing an example from Roman Catholicism and saying that there are RC churches in India under his Universal Primacy. He was suggesting an RC type model of Church administration.  I have a copy of the news paper report with me.  The word 'Oriental Orthodox' was not used a single time in the media reports.

As for Oriental orthodox identity, Indian Orthodox Church is one of the sister churches from 1965 (Council of Addis Ababa)  onwards, i.e. the Church was independenly sending representatives to all OO dialogues with EO, RC and in WCC and many IOC fathers contributed to the unity efforts with EO (and now with RC).  For Ethiopian, Coptic and Armenian Churches, the Orthodox Church in India is a sister church.  They do not want to involve in the internal issues of the Indian Church. i.e. they see the Church only as a unity in faith - the true OO way of seeing it.

I don't think our dreams will fulfill if the focus of the two groups is not the same. If Jacobites continue to focus on Petrine primacy, thronal supremacy, universal nature only of Antioch etc. then we do not have a common focus.  There is no reason for IOC to focus on these concepts. Unity needs a common focus. If our common focus is to grow in OO faith, then unity is instant - it happens as quickly as possible. 

Peace
Paul

[dhinuus]

Dear Mathew, I am in agreement with most of your thoughts. But you cannot blame the IOC alone for the court cases. It should be understood as a continuation of historic events. In the present situation, IOC do have rights in some of the ancient parishes (i.e. if the aim is to have an independent Jacobite church), to use the churches on few Sundays of a month. I am not interested in parting based on majority decision. Church is not pure democracy, rather it is democracy + authority of the Bishop/Synod.

Dear Paul,
I was not blaming the IOC alone for court cases. I was not even suggesting a permanant parting of ways based on majority in each parish. I was suggesting that there has to be an atomsphere of love and the power struggle has to end. As a temperory arrangement (it may have to last for some time), let the party that has the majority in each parish control that parish.

I don't think our dreams will fulfill if the focus of the two groups is not the same. If Jacobites continue to focus on Petrine primacy, thronal supremacy, universal nature only of Antioch etc. then we do not have a common focus. There is no reason for IOC to focus on these concepts. Unity needs a common focus. If our common focus is to grow in OO faith, then unity is instant - it happens as quickly as possible.

The problem is Paul, more and more I am not sure if we even have a shared dream.

 I am thinking of a return to the state that existed in 1964 when Mor Augen was enthroned as Catholicose, that is my dream.

From your posts what I under stand is that your dream is to have a 100% independent Indian Church, and deny any existense of Malankara-Anitoch relationship and ever relationship there was because the corrupt bribing Syriac fathers wanted money from India.

I hear suggestions to slowly modify the liturgy, stop using Syriac nodes in chanting, come up with Hindustani / Carnatic nodes for church liturgy, gradually change the vestments of priests, make it more in line with the Hindu culture of India etc.

I am not saying this is necessarily wrong. The Hindu culture of India is by no means inferior to any other culture. And nowhere does it say that you cant have Orthodox faith and a Hindu tradition.

But there is a very stong section of the Malankara Church who like the West Syriac rite and want to keep it that way. They cherish the relationship with the Patriarch of Antioch. This relationship to Antioch is based on historical reasons and cannot be denied.

I will concede to you that West Syriac rite nor the Patriarchate of Antioch is the crux of Orthodoxy. However you cannot ignore the sentiment of the people and attain unity.

Now what I am suggesting is that no body should accuse the other of RC herecy, or call somene as 'not knowing one's father' for not towing a ultra-patriotic line.

We should focus more on our shared faith, than on differences in hierarchy. We need to let the majority in each parish control that parish. We need to have official announcement removing all schism. Slowly a united synod will emerge. We dont have to wait till a united synod, to stop civil court cases.

Peace and Love first... Full Unity Next..

In Christ..

Mathew G M

[paul2004]

From your posts what I under stand is that your dream is to have a 100% independent Indian Church, and deny any existense of Malankara-Anitoch relationship and ever relationship there was because the corrupt bribing Syriac fathers wanted money from India.
Peace and Love first... Full Unity Next..

In Christ..

Mathew G M

Dear Mathew, It is not about severing any relationhip, rather about having a primate in SOC who agrees to the needs of the Indian Church and also agrees to the unity of the Church in India. From IOC perspective, when there is such a primate the issues will be solved.  It is true that here and there one find reactions of an emotional kind. One will also find Jacobites trying to isolate IOC. As a reaction one will find some people in IOC trying to say that we do not need any relationship with such a primate who does not care for the unity in Malankara.  So, such emotions are there in both sections and both are wrong.   We need to seek the truth about the real ambition, not the emotional reaction to what happened.

Peace

Paul

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