St Thomas Christians

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fatima-Crusader
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

Fatima-Crusader

Guest
When the fist contact with indian Christians was made who had been isolated this is what they had reported they belived, is there any truth to this?
The Doctrines wherein the Church of Malabar agrees with the Church of England, and differs from that of Rome.
  1. She condemns the Pope’s Supremacy.
  2. She affirms that the Church of Rome is fallen from the true Faith.
  3. She denies Transubstantiation, or that Christ’s Body and Blood are really and substantially in the Eucharist.
  4. She condemns Images, and the Adoration of them as Idolatrous.
  5. She makes no use of Oils in the Administration of Baptism.
  6. She allows of no Spiritual Affinity.
  7. She denies Purgatory.
  8. She denies the necessity of Auricular Confession.
  9. She knows nothing of Extream Unction.
  10. She allows her Priests to Marry as often as they have a mind, and Ordains such as have been married three or four times, and to Widows, without any scruple.
  11. She denies Matrimony to be a Sacrament.
  12. She holds but two Orders, Priesthood, and Diaconate.
  13. She Celebrates in Leavened Bread.
  14. She Consecrates with Prayer.
  15. She denies Confirmation to be a Sacrament.
In the Account that is given of the Doctrines of the Church of Malabar, in the Eighteenth Chapter of the First Book of the Visitation,
 
Last edited:
I’m sorry, but there really has to be some confusion here…

The “Church of Malabar” is Catholic (formally called the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, though is sometimes informally called the “Church of Malabar”

Unless you are referring to the Malabar Independent Syrian Church which was founded in 1772 when they seperated from the what became the Orthodox, I don’t think this is correct. What you describe must be a sect and not the authentic Malabar Church.

en.wikipedia.org

Saint Thomas Christian denominations - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
OK, after looking this doc over, this every much seems to be the Anglican Communion sect.
 
Page 69 talks about this is how they found them after not having ties with christianity for a couple hundered years and that they knew about the nestorains to their east, correct me im wrong but this is before the anglicans found them right?
 
PickyPicky said:
40.png
phil19034:
this every much seems to be the Anglican Communion sect.
Click to expand...
I think if you don’t want to call them a church, you could call them an ecclesial community.
Click to expand...
what’s your point? I didn’t call them a “sect of Christianity.” I called them an “Anglican Communion sect,” which is exactly what they are. I guess I could have said “an ecclesial community inside the Anglican Communion” but that’s quite long. I guess I could have also said “an Anglican Communion denomination,” but that can be sort of confusing to so.

The point is, it a group of Christians who support Protestant theology and are officialted with the Anglican Communion.
 
Last edited:
Fatima-Crusader said:
Page 69 talks about this is how they found them after not having ties with christianity for a couple hundered years and that they knew about the nestorains to their east, correct me im wrong but this is before the anglicans found them right?
Click to expand...
I’m sorry, but this book has an agenda. The whole book is trying to use this specific group of St. Thomas Christians to justify and claim that Protestant theology is correct and that Catholic and Orthodox theology is wrong.

Just the book claims that the Jesuits came across a group of St. Thomas Christians who didn’t support traditional Catholic / Orthodox beliefs in NO way confirms that all St. Thomas Christians believed the same.

Again, they are picking a choosing select pieces of information to justify their position that the Catholic Church is wrong.
 
I’m going to go through each of these

“Fatima-Crusader said:
  1. She condemns the Pope’s Supremacy. << not surprising since the Oriental Orthodoxy (which St. Thomas Christianity all comes from went into schism with both Rome and Constantinople in the year 451
  2. She affirms that the Church of Rome is fallen from the true Faith. << possible, but doubt this is true unless she says the same about Constantinople (see #1)
  3. She denies Transubstantiation, or that Christ’s Body and Blood are really and substantially in the Eucharist. << again, since they were in schism since 451 AD, they are not going to have a dogmatic belief using the term “transubstantiation.” ALL ORTHODOX believe in the Real Presence in a way Catholics would consider transubstantiation - even if they don’t call it that. The Catholic understanding of what all Orthodox (Eastern and Oriental - plus the Church of the East) believe in regards to the Eucharist is considered to be the transubstantiation. Does matter if they object to the term… what they believe about the Real Presence matches the Catholic understanding from the Catholic point of view.
  4. She condemns Images, and the Adoration of them as Idolatrous. << Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is not an ancient practice from the 400s AD, so it would make sense they didn’t have it. As far a images are concerned, IF this is true, there might be a cultural reason. Hindus have lots of art depicting their gods. And I’ve seen blasphemous pictures of Christ with many arms or blue/green skin to depict the Hindu gods. So there MIGHT have been a local discipline against images to prevent this blasphemy. Also, they were were cut off, so they were not present for the councils which dealt with what kind of images are ok and which are not.
  5. She makes no use of Oils in the Administration of Baptism. Oil is NOT part of Baptism. It’s part of exorcisms. The Roman Rite typically preforms additional rites of exorcism at the same time a Baptism is performed. However, those additional Rites that use Chrism are NOT technically part of the Baptism. They just typically happen at the time of Baptism.
  6. She allows of no Spiritual Affinity. <<<< I don’t even know what this means
  7. She denies Purgatory. <<< not surprising … all Orthodox deny the word Purgatory. But when you talk to all of them about their beliefs regarding what St. Paul says about purification by fire, it turns out that they all do believe in what we Catholics call Purgatory. They just don’t call it that.
(cont)
Click to expand...
 
phil19034 said:
what’s your point? I didn’t call them a “sect of Christianity.” I called them an “Anglican Communion sect,” which is exactly what they are. I guess I could have said “an ecclesial community inside the Anglican Communion” but that’s quite long. I guess I could have also said “an Anglican Communion denomination,” but that can be sort of confusing to so
Click to expand...
My apologies. You were just avoiding the prolix and the confusing. You are probably unaware that to many the designation “sect” carries a sniff of distaste.
 
(cont)
  1. She denies the necessity of Auricular Confession. << this is very misleading. We Catholic DO believe that it possible to be forgiven by God for a mortal sin without Confession. This is through a “Perfect Act of Contrition.” However, what we teach is that it’s impossible for anyone to know if they have actually received forgiveness through a Perfect Act of Contrition. Therefore, to be safe, we require Confession because Jesus granted his Church the ability to forgive sins in His name.
  2. She knows nothing of Extream Unction. <<< it’s in the Bible… just not with this name.
  3. She allows her Priests to Marry as often as they have a mind, and Ordains such as have been married three or four times, and to Widows, without any scruple. <<< If true, this sounds like a local mistake. Again, they were cut off from not just the Catholic Church, buf from the rest of Oriental Christianity for centuries.
  4. She denies Matrimony to be a Sacrament. << same as above.
  5. She holds but two Orders, Priesthood, and Diaconate. << this might be misleading. St. Thomas Aquinas himself felt that Bishop wasn’t a separate order of Holy Orders, but just a promotion for priests. PLUS, we even today say “Ordained to the Diaconate”, “ordained to the priesthood” and “consecrated to the Episcopate.” So even us Catholics don’t really say “ordained a Bishop” - we usually say "consecrated a Bishop"
  6. She Celebrates in Leavened Bread. <<< this is typical of all almost all Eastern Christianity. Even Eastern Catholics in full communion with the Pope. Both are valid according to Catholics, but only one type is valid within each Rite. In other words, a Rite can’t use both. A Rite must use only one kind.
  7. She Consecrates with Prayer. <<<< huh?
  8. She denies Confirmation to be a Sacrament. <<< again, misleading. Eastern Christians don’t call it “Confirmation.” They call it Chrismation and they typically do it at the same time as Baptism.
    [/quote]
 
Thank you for clearing that up. I was getting really puzzled, as one of my (totally Catholic) priest friends is Indian and originates from a Syro-Malabar community.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top