Our Church: History
Hierarchy, Distribution and Doctrine
The spiritual regional head of the church is the Catholicos of the East and the temporal head over church assets is the Malankara Metropolitan. In 1934, through the meeting of the Malankara Association the authority and powers of the Malankara Metropolitan was entrusted to the Catholicos. Thus, both the spiritual and temporal authorities of the Church was vested in one person who is the Catholicos cum Malankara Metropolitan and the development of authority in that direction was completed in the Church. The official title of the head of the Church is the “Catholicos of the East and the Malankara Metropolitan”. Baselios Mar ThomaPaulose II was enthroned as Catholicos of the East on I November 2010 at Parumala Church by the Holy Synod, the 91 Catholicos of the East in the lineage of Apostle Thomas, the eighth after reinstatement in India, and the twentieth Malankara Metropolitan.
Oriental Orthodox Churches, including the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, accept only the first three Ecumenical Synods. Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, as all other Oriental Orthodox Churches, uses the original Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, without the Filioque clause.
- The Divine Liturgy is called the Holy Qurbana, which is derived from the Aramaic word korban meaning “sacrifice”.
- The Holy Qurbana is mostly conducted and prayers recited in Malayalam. However, some parts of the Holy Qurbana are sung in Syriac. During the 20th century the ‘Qurbana -kramam’ (i.e. the book containing the order of worship’) was translated into English, for the benefit of worshipers living outside Kerala.
The Catholicate
The word “Catholicos” means “The General Head” It can be considered as equivalent to “Universal Bishop”. There were only three ranks of priesthood in the early Church: Episcopos (Bishop), Priest and Deacon. By the end of the 3rd century, certain bishops of certain important cities in the Roman Empire gained pre-eminence over other bishops and they came to be known as Metropolitans. The Ecumenical councils of the 4th century recognized the supreme authority of these Metropolitans. By the 5th century the bishops in major cities such as Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch gained control over the churches in the surrounding cities. Gradually they became the heads of each independent regional church and were called Patriarch, which means common father. The same rank in the Churches outside the Roman Empire was called Catholicos. There were four ancient Catholicate in the Church before the 5th century. They were the Catholicate of the East, the Catholicate of Armenia, the Catholicate of Georgia and the Catholicate of Albania. None of these ranks and titles are the monopoly of any church. In Orthodox tradition, any Apostolic and autonomous national church (often referred to as local Church) has the authority to declare and call its head Catholicos, Pope or Patriarch.