Originally Posted by EagleWatchWe certainly have communion with one of the Orthodox Church despite doctrinal differences - That is with Independant Orthodox church of Thozhiyoor.
Which is a breakaway group less than 300 years old.
Does that church have communion with any Orthodox Church?
The history of non-Catholic churches and the Latin Rite schismatics of the 19th century fits neatly like a jigsaw puzzle when one reads up the secular history of Kerala. The big piece missing in the puzzle is the Dutch period 1658 - 1795.
In 1663, Dutch captured Cochin and all non-Catholics came under their control. It is known that in the nearly one and half centuries that they had control on Malabar Coast and nearly two centuries on Coromandel Coast, there were lots of migrations. European Jews were also among them. That explains the presence of White Jews and their Jewish colony in Mattancherry, Cochin. The ancient Jewish community, who resembled the locals and lived among them were described as Black Jews (when books mentioned them for the first time).
The Dutch had a fort not only in Cochin, but also in other places along the Malabar Coast. The closest to Thrissur District was in Chetwai (Chowghat). In 1693, the Dutch captured a Nambudiri controlled principality, Kunnamkulangerra, now known as Kunnamkulam. That is when a Dutch settlement was established, a segregated residential area, in the style of colonialists. A small ancient community of Christians lived in Kunnamkulam, but they were Syrian Catholics in communion with RCC since 1599.
Thozhiyoor Sabha was started by ONE single non-Catholic who came from Cochin to Guruvayoor in 1772 (Dutch period !) because he was very much upset when he was not chosen as the leader of the non-Catholic group, as he expected to be, or had the right to be. He is said to have spent many months in solitude and prayer at Guruvayoor, and finally someone gave him a place of his own because of his piety. After that he gathered a small group of followers, either new converts or from among other non-Catholics in Cochin/Kunnamkulam, which has grown into 7000 members by now. It is hardly possible that anyone from the ancient community of Syrian Catholics in communion with RCC would have joined a one man church. It had been hard enough to persuade them to accept the Roman Pope, even after they were without a bishop for two years from 1597 - 1599.
In 1806, Rev Dr Claudius Buchanan visited the non-Catholic group in Kunnamkulam and promised to help them with Syriac Bibles etc. The visit of CMS missionaries followed. CMS missionaries set up a small mission centre for all non-Catholics in Thrissur district by 1840. They had operated from Cochin since 1808, and Kunnamkulam had been among the six mission stations.
Thrissur town and its surroundings had at the end of eighteenth century (1790 - ) had a lot of migrations from the area of Cochin, because that is when the town and commercial centre was built by the king of Cochin.
Is it sheer coincidence that all the non-Catholics who joined some Middle Eastern Church or the other and call themselves independent Orthodox, whatever that means, were first visited by Rev Dr Claudius Buchanan in 1806, and later were the object of intense education by CMS missionaries, including Lutheran Basel Mission? To my knowledge the term Syrian Christians was coined for this non-Catholic group by him. (The ancient Christian community of natives had been referred to as Christians of St Thomas or St Thomas Christians.) And the establishment of Orthodox churches, known first only as Jacobites, all happened shortly after the Dutch left, after having been in Malabar Coast for nearly a century and a half?
At the visit of Rev Dr Claudius Buchanan, there had been no talk of the non-Catholic group being locals or having anything to do with the St Thomas tradition of Malabar Coast. They gave themselves clearly a migrant group who had never had anything to do with the Roman Catholic church at any time.
I ask myself if these non-Catholic groups are really Dutch Calvinists and Jewish Christians from Holland/Spain/Portugal turned Anglicans turned Middle Eastern Orthodox. Lutheran converts had disappeared into Orthodox churches when Basel Mission was shut down. The Latin Rite Catholics of Diocese of Cochin schismed, adopting the same Syriac Rite as the Syrian Addai and Mari Liturgy of Catholics of Malabar, because at the time Portuguese Padroado was suppressed in 1836, it not possible to switch from Latin Rite to a Syrian rite church in Thrissur. The Carmelites of Veropoly, to prevent further schisms would later make arrangements for Catholics to switch Rites, by creating a new Carmelite congregation for locals at Mannanam, near Kottayam. It is a wonder that any Christian in Kerala is willing to be counted as Latin Rite Catholic at all because obviously all want to be known as Nambudiri Brahmins and direct converts of Apostle Thomas.
