Christian Church Of India

[M.SIGGA]

lol. this is such an honest post PatRitaMic. It's the Sacred Heart. Do you attend the Easter/Passion Liturgy at your Indian Church? Because I heard it is the longest liturgy out of all the Eastern and Western Rites, at least it is in the Orthodox Church. My ex said in Kerala people sometimes pass out from standing up so long!

[thicke]

Jesus w/ the colored rays of light coming out of his heart (I know there's a name...)

Divine mercy! :D

[PedroX]

PRM,

One of my first "Catholic Prayers" was praying the stations of the Cross while walking up to St. Thomas Mount in Madras. The shrine there was beautiful (esp the picture of the Blessed Virgin). I still have the rosary I bought there.

peace..

[PatrickRitaMichael]

Do you attend the Easter/Passion Liturgy at your Indian Church? Because I heard it is the longest liturgy out of all the Eastern and Western Rites, at least it is in the Orthodox Church. My ex said in Kerala people sometimes pass out from standing up so long!

It's been awhile since I've been to mass at the Indian church, actually, b/c I went away to school and I was lucky to be able to attend mass at all (no car, only one catholic church nearby, not many Indians around). But I do remember that when I was little, the mass seemed unbearable b/c it was sooo long. I never saw anyone pass out though.. that would have been interesting!

thanks thicke, it IS the divine mercy. i just noticed today that we have two of those in our house, not one

pedrox, when did you go to india? i'm jealous, i haven't been there for 13 years!

Edited February 6, 2004 by PatrickRitaMichael

[Adeodatus]

Hi guys! I've been too ill to write much lately, but I couldn't resist this one.

My grandmother comes from one of these churches. The generic name for this bunch of churches is "The Christians of St Thomas". We are also called 'Nazranis' (i.e. Nazarenes)---one of the oldest names for Christians.

Thomas the Apostle came to India around AD 52. He established seven churches in what is now the south-western state of Kerala, and then went east and preached in what is now the state of Tamil Nadu. He converted a few thousand people from all the different castes of Hindu society, but irritated the highest caste--the priests (i.e. Brahmins). He was killed with a lance on what is now called St Thomas' Mount, just outside Madras, in AD 72. His tomb is still there, but his relics were translated to Edessa in Syria in the third or fourth century. I think the majority of the relics are now in Ortolana in Italy.

The Christians he converted almost died out a century or so later, but they were reinforced by more bishops coming from the Middle East. Because of this dependence on Christians in the Middle East for bishops, the Christians in India came to be allied with the Assyrian Church, and along with the Assyrians they kept going in and out of communion with Rome and the West, partly because of theology and mostly because of geography.

Even before the Portuguese came, the Dominicans and Franciscans came to the city of Quilon (Kollam) and established a Latin-rite church there (14th century), and they were FULLY in communion with the Nazranis. Later (16th century) when the Portuguese came, they were fully in communion with them too.

It was only when the Portuguese forced some 'Latinisations' on the Indian liturgy, and destroyed their ancient writings that some of the Nazranis rebelled (c. 1650s), and established communion with the Assyrians. These became the Syro-Malabar Orthodox. Later (19th century?) some Catholics rebelled and formed communion with the Syrian Orthodox Church, and became the Syro-Malankar Orthodox Church. The remainder who stayed loyal were the Syrian Catholics and the Latin Catholics.

And even later (early 20th century), groups from the Syro-Malankar and Syro-Malabar churches wanted to re-establish communion with the Pope, and they became the Syro-Malankar and Syro-Malabar CATHOLIC rite churches.

Until Vatican II the liturgical language of these churches was a dialect of Aramaic (called Syriac), the language Jesus spoke. I still remember some of the church songs my gran used to sing in Aramaic, like their version of the Kyrie Eleison and stuff. One of the things drummed into me as a child was that we (my family) had been Catholics for 2000 years, and there was no way on earth we were ever going to be allowed to depart from that!

Kerala is today roughly one-third Christian, a third Muslim and a third Hindu, and they get along peacefully. The majority of the Christians of St Thomas are Catholic (I can't remember the figures, but it's something like 5 million).

Hope that helps!

BTW Jim Caviezel's Aramaic on the trailer of 'the Passion' sounds really authentic! "My God , my God, why have you abandoned me?" is pronounced more like 'Elohi, Elohi, lam-ma shay-baktheni' than what you hear in Holy Week. But it was bound to get distorted if you have Mark writing Aramaic in Greek letters, and then that gets translated into English...