Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church

"Indian Orthodox Church" redirects here. For other uses, see Indian Orthodox churches.
This article is about the modern denomination. For the historic church body, see Malankara Church.
Not to be confused with Jacobite Syrian Christian Church.

Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
(Indian Orthodox Church)
Large, white two-storey building
MOSC Catholicate Palace
ClassificationOriental Orthodox
OrientationEastern Christianity
ScripturePeshitta
TheologyMiaphysitism
PolityEpiscopal
GovernanceEpiscopal Synod
PrimateMalankara Metropolitan & Catholicos of East Baselios Marthoma Mathews III
RegionIndia and the Nasrani Malayali diaspora
LanguageSyriac, Konkani, Malayalam, English
LiturgyWest Syriac Rite (Malankara Rite)
HeadquartersCatholicate Palace, Kottayam, Kerala, India
FounderThomas the Apostle (according to tradition)
Dionysius VI[1][2]: 285 [3]
Origin1st century by tradition,[4]
1912[5]
Independence1912 (Establishment of Catholicate)[6]
Separated fromSyriac Orthodox Church[7]: 197 
Branched fromSaint Thomas Christians, Malankara Church
SeparationsSyro-Malankara Catholic Church (1930)[7]: 197 
Members0.5 million in Kerala[8]
Other name(s)മലങ്കര സഭ
(Malankara Church)
Indian Orthodox Church
Official websitemosc.in
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Denominations

Saint Thomas Christian denominations

Syro-Malabar Catholic, Syro-Malankara Catholic, Latin Catholic

Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church

Independent Oriential Orthodox

Malabar Independent Syrian Church

Chaldean Syrian

Mar Thoma Syrian, St. Thomas Evangelical

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Andhra Evangelical Lutheran, Assemblies Jehovah Shammah, Christian Revival Church, Church of North India, Church of South India, Garo Baptist, Indian Brethren, Indian Pentecostal Church of God, Church of God (Full Gospel), North Bank Baptist Christian, Northern Evangelical Lutheran, Methodist Church, Presbyterian, The Pentecostal Mission, Seventh-day Adventist, United Evangelical Lutheran

Organisations

The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC)[9] also known as the Indian Orthodox Church (IOC)[10] or simply as the Malankara Church,[11] is an autocephalous[12][13][6] Oriental Orthodox church headquartered in Devalokam, near Kottayam, India. It serves India's Saint Thomas Christian (also known as Nasrani) population. According to tradition, these communities originated in the missions of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century (circa 52 AD).[14] It employs the Malankara Rite, an Indian form of the West Syriac liturgical rite.

The MOSC descends from the Malankara Church and its affiliation with the Syriac Orthodox Church. However, between 1909 and 1912, a schism over the authority of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch resulted in the dissolution of the unified Malankara Church and establishment of the overlapping and conflicting MOSC and Jacobite Syrian Christian Church (JSCC).[3] Since 1912, the MOSC has maintained a catholicate, the Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan–presently Baselios Marthoma Mathews III–who is the primate of the church.

The MOSC drafted and formally adopted a constitution in 1934, in order to define the relationship it has with the Syriac Orthodox Church and the patriarch, wherein it defined itself a division of the Syriac Orthodox Church with its supreme spiritual leader being the Patriarch of Antioch. However the constitution stipulated that all the spiritual duties of the patriarch in the Malankara Church was entrusted to the Catholicos of the East and reiterated that its administration was the prerogative of the Malankara Metropolitan. The constitution further declared that the positions of the Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan are to be held by the same person from then on, who shall henceforth act as the spiritual and administrative head of the church.[15] The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church asserts communion with the other Oriental Orthodox churches. However, regular legal and occasional physical confrontations between the MOSC and the Syriac Orthodox JSCC have continued despite multiple efforts to reconcile the churches.[3][16][2]: 272 

The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church accepts miaphysitism,[17][18] which holds that in the one person of Jesus Christ, divinity and humanity are united in one (μία, mia) nature (φύσις – "physis") without separation, without confusion, without alteration and without mixing[19] where Christ is consubstantial with God the Father. Around 500 bishops within the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem refused to accept the dyophysitism (two natures) doctrine decreed by the 4th ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon in 451,[dubious – discuss] an incident that resulted in the second major split in the main body of the Christian Church (after the Nestorian schism). While the Oriental Orthodox churches rejected the Chalcedonian definition, the sees that would later become the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church accepted this council.[20]

Self-reporting roughly 2.5 million members (with external estimates of roughly 1 million)[21] across 30 dioceses worldwide, a significant proportion of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church's adherents reside in the southern India state of Kerala with the diaspora communities in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.[22]

  1. ^ "St. Vattasseril Geevarghese Mar Dionysios". Pilning, Bristol: St. Mary's Indian Orthodox. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
  2. ^ a b Attwater, Donald (1937). The Dissident Eastern Churches. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company.
  3. ^ a b c Brock, Sebastian P. (2018). "Thomas Christians". In Mardutho, Beth (ed.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  4. ^ Lossky, Nicholas; Bonino, José Miguez; Pobee, John, eds. (1991). "Oriental Orthodox Churches". Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement. Geneva: World Council of Churches. p. 756-757.
  5. ^ Winkler, Dietmar W. (2019). "The Syriac Church Denominations: An overview". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. Routledge. pp. 130–131.
  6. ^ a b "The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church". Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  7. ^ a b Attwater, Donald (1935). "The Malankarese". The Catholic Eastern Churches (1937 revised ed.). Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company.
  8. ^ Zachariah, K.C. (April 2016). "Religious denominations of Kerala" (PDF). Kerala: Centre for Development Studies (CDS). Working paper 468. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2022.
  9. ^ Thomas Arthur Russell (2010). Comparative Christianity: A Student's Guide to a Religion and Its Diverse Traditions. Universal-Publishers. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-59942-877-2. The Malankara Orthodox Church of India(also called by a variety of names, such as the Malankara Church). It is located in Kerala, India.
  10. ^ "Home". Northeast American Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  11. ^ John; Anthony McGuckin (November 2010). The Encyclopedia Of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, 2 Volume Set. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwells. p. 878. ISBN 978-1-4443-9254-8. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, also known as Indian Orthodox Church also Malankara Church, is one of the major and oldest churches in the world.
  12. ^ Lucian N. Leustean (2010). Eastern Christianity and the Cold War, 1945–91. New York: Routeledge Taylor & Francis Group. p. 317. ISBN 978-0-203-86594-1.
  13. ^ Fahlbusch; Lochman; Mbiti; Pelikan (November 2010). The Encyclopedia Of Christianity, Volume 5 S-Z. Gittingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck&Rupercht. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-8028-2417-2. The autocephalous Malankara Orthodox Church is governed by Holy Episcopal Synod of 24 Bishops presided over by His Holiness Moran Mar Baselios Mar Thoma Didimos Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan.
  14. ^ The Encyclopedia of Christianity, Volume 5 by Erwin Fahlbusch. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing – 2008. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-8028-2417-2.
  15. ^ Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. The Constitution of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in English.
  16. ^ FP Staff (27 September 2019). "Malankara church row: All you need to know about century-old dispute between Jacobite, Orthodox factions in Kerala". FirstPost. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  17. ^ Winkler 1997, p. 33-40.
  18. ^ Brock 2016, p. 45–52.
  19. ^ The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity by Ken Parry 2009 ISBN 1-4443-3361-5 page 88 [1]
  20. ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia: Henoticon". Newadvent.org. 1 June 1910. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  21. ^ Varghese, Baby (2011). "Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  22. ^ "The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church". Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Retrieved 31 May 2022.