‘The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India’- Volume II , Chief Editor Prof.George Menachery

Mathew T.George
Thanks for the remarks in your post 46431. I am truly intrigued by the trend of discussions now.l I confess that I am a late comer to this blog and may have missed some earlier discussions. However the discussions are focused on Nazranis of Kerala there is no doubt. I have gathered from the present blog and from elsewhere that presently there are 3 major trains of thought about our origins.
1. We are descendants of St Thomas’ activities in Kerala in the first century CE when Christianity was in its earliest stages of development elsewhere. 2. We are descendants of the same saint’s activities but the difference is that whereas in 1. the original population who accepted Thomas’ mission were local Brahmans and in 2. the emphasis is on Jewish settlers and traders who were in Kerala since well before Jesus himself. 3. The community developed from migrants from west Asia ie places like Syria Palestine Persia etc. Some evidence exist supporting all theories.and the fact may be that in fact all the ideas may hold some truth but we do not yet know enough about Nazranis to confidently say that yes this theory is correct and some other theory is not. Unfortunately the area where Thomas is supposed to have landed is currently under river deposits from Periyar river and these cover could be a few hundreds of meters in thickness. As technology of excavation becomes more sophisticated we may get some true evidence of what happened nearly 2000 years back.
The research in to the mitochondrial DNA is an important strand in this area but currently we are far from making any solid conclusions. From the Nazrani side there is simply not enough samples that have been analysed to draw conclusions. If we were to take a conservative estimate of the populations believing to be descendants of Thomas mission we get I think the following picture. Currently there may be about 5 million individuals who could legitimately claim to be Nazranis. A much larger number have surely perished in 2000 years. To isolate the gene pools of the living alone will be a task beyond comprehension. The Jews I understand have done a good bit of work in studying the available gene pools including those who are no more.
My doubt about the correlation between a Jew in Germany or elsewhere with a few Nazranis may be indicative but not conclusive. This is a purely scientific conjecture. I could be wrong and open to being corrected. I had raised another question and that is why there is no cross on the graves of the Archdeacons that have been prominently displayed in this series of discussions. A Christian grave normally has a cross on it and these graves do not have them. I have not ruled out the possibility that there may have been a cross and I did not see it due to poor photography or some other reason.
For getting at the truth one has to have patience and an open mind.
B.George

It’s nice that B. George is learning about things he never knew previously. In case the theories that are born from his current state of learning cause others to be misled, I write:

Any individual can go to countless “old” Nasrani graves in Kerala and see that it is not a fact that ” A Christian grave normally has a cross on it…” (B. George).

One can not look at the present situation in which graves are highly decorated, ornate, made of precious materials, etc., and have elaborate inscriptions, and say that the graves of our ancestors that were Christian must have necessarily had those same properties. One doesn’t need to look at the archdeacons for this— one can look at many normal Nasrani graves.

Now, as to the religion of the *Archdeacons* prior to the Portuguese, one has to be able to grasp the following *facts*:
1. We are talking about the Archdeacons, which is an office of the Christian CHurch, There is no “archdeacon” in Judaism.
2. The article (http://nasrani.net/2007/06/14/the-tomb-of-archdeacons-kuravilangadu/) talks about the earliest historical mention of the Archdeacons by Patr. Timothy, an East Syriac Christian. So from this how does one even begin to substantiate a fantasy that the Archdeacons of the Nasranis were practicing Jews from the 8th to the 16th century?

Pakallomattom may have the CMH, that means it is possible their male line ancestors at some point in history were Cohenim; perhaps the reason for their high office in Malabar was due to their ancestral “profession”. So when they converted to Christianity, they became one of the priestly families.

It would be interesting to look at other such priestly families, Kaliankal, Konat, etc., and see whether a similar genetic marker can be found.

Dear Michael,

A true Isralite does not care for DNA. What is most important is the heart. One can be a Cohen 10 times over and still never be an Israelite at heart.

One can be Irish/Celtish in DNA 10 times over, yet be an Isralite 10 times over. I am repeatedly convinced of this day by day. I feel the passionate love to Israel from a Scotsman, yet find indifference from a Jew towards Israel on the same day.

If Creation Science (ie. Literal interpretation of Genesis 1 to 11) is correct, which I believe it to be so, then this whole DNA matter all over the world is fundamentally flawed. My DNA confirms Cohen heritage and I strongly believe that much of the assumptions in this DNA science is garbage.

I believe in my Jewish heritage, not from DNA studies, but from evidences all over. John Mathew limits his belief to Passover and DNA. To me our Syriac heritage, the forbidden day (Shabbath) at the Synod of Diamper, Pantanius’s observation of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, Cosmas’s observation of animal slaughter by Nazereans by blood letting than by bludgenoning, our dozens of similarities with the Black Jews, our Biblical names, missing millions of Black Jews etc.. etc.. the list goes on an on.. to those who have been called back to their Israelite heritage.

When the above were discussed in this forum some years ago, there was never the support of Malayala Manorama or a Dr. Mini Kariappa.

Could anyone please reply why some Kerala Christians have the name, “Alexander (Chandy)”? As far as I know, no saint has that name. Only, one Pope in the 3rd or 4th century had that name and he was not a popular Pope. As far as I know, Alexander, the Great or his army did not come to Kerala. The original name, Alexander is a title and not a name and so there was no Alexander before, Alexander, the Great.
Please post your opinion about this.

Dear John Mathew,

Your theory is valid to some extent and fits the common sense. It is human nature to name sons and daughters (and often pet dogs ) after historic personalities who are believed to have excelled in various dimensions of human life – ex. Graham Gadhi Johns – a white man

But there is much more to it. the following passage explains it well, taken from jewishhistory.org
http://www.jewishhistory.org/alexander-the-great/
“His father, Philip of Macedon, was the first one to unite the disparate, war-like Greek tribes (albeit at the point of a sword). He then brazenly attacked Persia, the world empire of his day, and defeated them. At his height, he died and passed on the torch to his son, Alexander. Philip gave Alexander the philosopher Aristotle as a teacher, who imbued him with Greek/Hellenist values that he spread to the world, which he proceeded to conquer. When he came to Jerusalem (329 BCE according to most historians), instead of sacking the city – the Jews had sided with the Persians – he dismounted his horse and bowed to the High Priest, Simon the Just, whose face he said resembled the angel that appeared in his dreams before each victory.Although he left the city in peace, and the Jews showed their gratitude by naming all children born that year Alexander, this was the beginning of Greek/Hellenist influence in Judea.”

Is it not telling us something about our forgotten/ignored Jewish heritage ?
Since we have our on nasranised name chandy, it is obvious that this cannot be a simple case of imitating historic personalities. Read this with the Y DNA results at familytreedna.com. Nearly 30% of us have J2 which is middle eastern

Dear John Mathew/T Cherian,

I think our men are exceptionally hairy. A lot of Monkey Carpeting.
Its not just about the chest hair. (I mean the ‘T’) . Many of us have hair on the back and shoulders as well. Forget about the skin tone. I have some 70-80% coverage. So do have my brother. And nearly all of my Cousin brothers have the carpeting, atleast the T. I can see that Body hair of this intensity (Tier1) is observed among Jews, Persians and Hispanics (Arabs, Greeks and Italians would be tier 2 here). Our Nair / Brahmin brothers have it, but Tier 3) – I may be wrong. (Also I have noticed body hari is mostly absent/negligible among the so called lower castes – I am not boasting of anything here. (Also I do agree that ‘Tilakan’ is hairy, which is unusual among ezhava community)

Also in addition to mammodissa and pesaha we share something common with the israelites – Appan & Amma (Abba & Amma – as used by the Lord, Abba and Ima in Hebrew)

Shalom.

Varghese:

RE: Alexander.

1. Jews honor Alexander (for various reasons) and name their children Alexander
2. Muslims (ditto)
3. Christians (ditto)
4. Atheists (ditto)

Does that mean (1) = (2) = (3) = (4)? Of course not. That Jews name their children Alex, and Nasranis do the same, does not prove anything at all.

I don’t understand at all your logic about the name “Chandy”. Chandy *is* Alex *is* Iskander *is* Alehandros *is* Alexei. These are the same name, modified according to the pronunciation characteristics of the particular population.

Unless you find out that Hebrews use “Chandy*, you’ve proven nothing.

Finally, much hype is made of our “forgotten” Jewish past. The funny thing is, nothing is forgotten. The fact that all of us are talking about the Jewish ancestors who made up *ONE* part of our ancestry, means nothing has been forgotten. But what is strange is that people are amplifying this one single aspect of our ancestry, for whatever reason. Each of us has four grandparents. Logically speaking is their any reason to boast of any one of those grandparents over the other? Not really. We may do this due to favoritism, but in actual genetic fact, each grandparent contributes to us with equal likelihood.

Yes, some of our grandparents were Jews. But some others were Persians, others were Arabs, Greeks and Romans. And the vast majority of our ancestors must have been bonafide Indians. A sense of proportion may help.

(Note: You do know that Varghese bar Mani is an Aramaic name. That is, it is of pagan origin. If you want to amplify your Jewish heritage, you would say Varghese ben Mani. Of course, neither Varghese nor Mani are Jewish names, so the whole exercise seems a little odd.)

(Note 2: You citing Y DNA results has to be qualified: Y DNA results only point to *ONE* of our many lines. That is, it is the line from Father to Son. So if you look 10 generations back, you would have had at most 1024 grandparents. Your Y DNA results points to only ONE of those 1024 grandparents. You would still have 1023 grandparents who could have been something entirely different. Again, a sense of proportion would help here.)

RE: http://nasrani.net/2007/02/20/book-review-the-st-thomas-christian-encyclopaedia-chief-editor-profgeorge-menachery/?cid=47762

Dear John Mathew,

Again you are right (mostly, but not always). for example the arabs use mama/ommi (behbak ya omi, an arabic song on mother uses both) and baba.
Now about Fr. Placid’s observation – Very much true. But there is further to it. Around the world in most of the cultures (with exceptions of the Japanese who use ‘chichi’ and the Georgians who simply revert the terms) amma or a similar sounding word (read ‘mm’) is used to address mother where as ba or pa is commonly found for ‘father’. ( This is just an observation/fact but i cant make a conclusion on this as i see two possibilities here – extrapolation would lead me to the tower of babel?? or it could be a much shorter journey to the laber room where mmmmaaa…. is what most of us started with)

Now,in tamil they use appa and amma (thanthai and thai) but in kerala it is achan and amma (now many use daddy and mommy). Now the question is who we are? definitely not Tamils, but we are Malayalis. If so then why arent we using Achan and Amma even though we share a hindu heritage but using something rather similar to the Tamilians ? I would say this is indicative of the Aramaic/Israelite (see that Jewish community co-existed with the nasranis for centuries in Kerala) influence that we had rather than looking across the boarder to Tamil Nadu. Thats a very very long way, across the oceans when compared with crossing the Palakkad border. After all one’s culture is more likely to be defined by religion and faith than his land of living (only if your are observant – look at the muslims in kerla, Indonesia adn Yemen arent they all the same in culture – even their kailys, belt and vests). Arent they so ?
When you say Arameans do share the same words, So did the Aramaic speaking Israelite among whom where the Christ and his disciples. Now about the

Also please note that I am not trying to or does want to prove any ‘hebraic descendency or lineage’ of Nasranis. But I am here in search of any missing information on our past submerged under the heavily latinized present which I find too murky.

Dear Varghese:

I’m not sure I follow your reasoning about Tamil. Malayalam, as I understand, is only a late evolution from Tamil. So I believe that our furthest ancestors were Tamil speakers, not Malayalam ones. So the presence of “Appan” and “Amma” in Malayalam is surely due to the origin of our language from Tamil/proto-Dravidian. I don’t think it is due to Syriac/Hebrew influence, and that can’t be demonstrated either.

Regarding the Syriac “-tha” ending where in Malayalam is “-sa” for baptism, that is due to the well known tendency in Malayalamized Syriac to use “s” instead of the Syriac “teth”.

Finally, there is something interesting that no one has considered, but that I once brought up on NSC: “Jewish Malayalam”.

Has anyone even bothered to consider whether there is any link between the Malayalam that Nasranis speak and that of the Kerala Black Jews?

The Black Jews are the oldest Jews of Kerala, and their language bears many marks of Tamil. Their words for God and other religious concepts are actually Dravidian words, that translate the Hebrew original. They don’t have any Sanskritization at all. And, last I checked, their words for God and other theological concepts are not at all used by the Nasranis.

You can google up “Jewish Malayalam” and find the article, it’s a great read. I also posted the link here on NSC a long time ago asking for opinions.

So, though I believe there is a connection between Jews and Nasranis, I also don’t think it’s as strong as what some people are proposing. That the Nasranis were ardent Jews before conversion to Malayalam. Not at all. Some of our ancestors may have been Jews, and *ONE* of their traditions passed on to us (though, not the most important one: circumcision!), but generally speaking the Nasranis were pretty much Syriac Christians. That’s right from the time of Cosmas up to the first observations of us by the Europeans. The lack of any Jewish Malayalam vocabularly in Malayalam — as well as the lack of circumcision — is pretty damning evidence against the kind of wholesale Jewishness/Israeliteness that some here propose.

Personally, I’m sorry to say this, because after my detailed study of the Old Testament, I’m very much in favor of the proto-Israelite religion over the Greco-Roman-Syriac paganized Judaism that is modern “orthodox” Christianity. But facts are facts…

RE: Alexander.

Dear John,

I have the following reply here. sorry for any sarcastic comments that I have.
And I believe I am on this forum for a cause which I believe is just. I had been active only from the past week, but i had been an observant for more than a month now (before Dr.Mini’s Paper came out).
I had been particuarly intereseted in this subject as I felt bad when I watched the ‘History of Christianity’ by BBC where in Dr. Dermaid MacCalloch shamelessly states that Christianity in africa required many adaptations (with a black Virgin and child photo etc..) which i believe is extremely hypocritical as Jesus would have looked like a middle easterner, but not with blue eyes and blond hair. And I am sadden by the ignorance our Nasranis showing in copying the Blue-Blond Christ. So I am not a newcomer here.
I am trying to gather information and I welcome criticism. But i also criticise.

>> 1. Jews honor Alexander (for various reasons) and name their children Alexander
2. Muslims (ditto)
3. Christians (ditto)
4. Atheists (ditto)

Does that mean (1) = (2) = (3) = (4)? Of course not. That Jews name their children Alex, and Nasranis do the same, does not prove anything at all.
I don’t understand at all your logic about the name “Chandy”. Chandy *is* Alex *is* Iskander *is* Alehandros *is* Alexei.

Alas..
eq1 – 1 * 0 = 0
eq2 – 2 * 0 = 0
so from eq1 & eq2 1=2 . good use of logic

I will give you even better example
(1)chinese eat banana.
(2)jews eat banana
(3)Mallus eat banana… so jews = mallus = chinese.. is that what i meant here ? I didnt say that.
I said it says something about our forgotten jewish heritage. And I have reasons to say that. Tell me how many Iskanders have you seen in kerala? In my case frankly none – I never ever knew even such a word existed untill Russia Test fired some missiles.. (though recently I have heard about names like Iskander Bhat – a upwalah from familytreedna.com) So ONLY we use it. Now why I says jewish heritage, but not jewish lineage (even though the YDNA samples are indicative of significant Semite, with proven *CMH*s among the founding fathers of the community). Interestingly the DNA tests as you know are not leading anywhere. J1 CMH is argued to be the only CMH as it has a higher concentration among the Cohen and through out the areas where Abrahams sons from Keturah were sent out. If J1 is abraham, then J2 is not simple as that. But the fact that J1 is fully abscent from Bene Israel (who are majority J2 CMH) tells a different story. Also J2 is more widely seen among many balkan communities, often in much higher concentration which means J2 may not be the Abraham, which leaves the entire Pakalomattom theory flawed. So instead of drawing direct conclusions as you said ‘Jewish ancestors who made up *ONE* part of our ancestry’, we have to find links which would first prove our Jewish Heritage if we have any, then only the ‘fractional lineage’ claims can be asserted.

>>>Finally, much hype is made of our “forgotten” Jewish past. The funny thing is, nothing is forgotten. The fact that all of us are talking about the Jewish ancestors who made up *ONE* part of our ancestry, means nothing has been forgotten. But what is strange is that people are amplifying this one single aspect of our ancestry, for whatever reason. Each of us has four grandparents. Logically speaking is their any reason to boast of any one of those grandparents over the other? Not really. We may do this due to favoritism, but in actual genetic fact, each grandparent contribute
Not really. We may do this due to favoritism, but in actual genetic fact, each grandparent contributes to us with equal likelihood.
Again I would have to disagree here. First of all I didnt use the term ‘Jewish Past’ but ‘Jewish heritage’ which are not necessarily the same. Nor did I made any claim about Jewish ancestors, but I said ‘read this together with the YDNA results — just trying to be closer to some level of conlcusion on those results which actually doenst assert anything but having 25% Semitic contribution. The simple logic that i use is – ‘If it looks like ….. and kwaks like a duck, Its a duck’. Thats it. Simple. We just like most others in kerala looks typically indian, and the available MtDNA shows almost 100% south asian (I would say Dravidian), but YDNA shows 33% (20/59) South Asian, 25%(14/59)Semite and 42% Aryan (16/59 r1a1a – persian/aryan, 8/59 R2 – Northern/balkan).

Now I will explain the ‘forgotten or not’ and will come to the contribution from Grand parents.
There are things forgotten, to the very basics. We dont observe the Shabbath anymore, nor do we (catholics) have the 10commandments as what they are. Look at any of churches and you will be able to find that all of the idols/statue were introduced after the Portuguese – I could be wrong here. Again If you ever asked our elderly – ‘who among the sons of men is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ the answere would mostly be ‘Youseppithavu – St.Joseph’. What a pitty. (you may comment it as ignorrance) Christ himself makes it clear – ‘There is none among the sons of men who is greater than John’. But the centuries of latinization and the introduction of the concept of ‘holy family’, a theme popularized by the blessed Chavara Kuriakose Achan has changed even the basic concepts in our mind (this has however strenghthened the concept of sanctity of family life among us). We are here not to fabricate history like the germans did (Now almost entire european/white populations believe they are ARYANS somethign that they havent even heard of for many many millennia – reason is simple, the germans had virtually no history at all) but to stitch together the avaialble pieces of the puzzle to get a good picture of our past. So I am not trying to hijack anyone else’s ancestor.

>> (Note: You do know that Varghese bar Mani is an Aramaic name. That is, it is of pagan origin. If you want to amplify your Jewish heritage, you would say Varghese ben Mani. Of course, neither Varghese nor Mani are Jewish names, so the whole exercise seems a little odd.)

Now about Varghese bar Mani – Yes I do. I knows what is aramaic and what is hebrew. I have used it with concious. Did I ever say that I am jewish/hebrew? I believe I didnt. If you have understood other wise I would advise you to rewire up. I used ‘Varghese bar Mani’ because thats what I prefer to use here in this forum whose primary objectives are properly writen. And when I say something it can be taken at the literal meaning – No need of any sophisticated scanners to read through the walls. Its all written in simple English and no decephering and decoding are required. So Varghese bar Mani is ‘Varghese bar Mani’ not ‘Varghese ben Mani’. Now I have definitive reasons to call myself varghese bar mani. So why do you call yourself John Mathew ? Is it not a western name. I am sure we nasranis had no names like John or mathew. So are you claiming Portuguese/English heritage ?
And about amplifying – a little bit of amplification is required to make things clear which is what I believe this forum stands for. But by amplify, you seems to have meant op-amplify (making the terms clear) which is boasting. Sorry I am not. I have alredy made it clear that I am in search of more information on our aramaic heritage, any possible links between our definitive Aramaic past (read heritage) and any possible Hebrew heritage. And I have reasons to do that. Definitely I wouldnt like to see my children growing up thinking that they are just one of the converts that the English/Portuguese made. (A Hindu friend asked me this question about 8 years ago. Thats what SNDP is teaching them)

>> (Note 2: You citing Y DNA results has to be qualified: Y DNA results only point to *ONE* of our many lines. That is, it is the line from Father to Son. So if you look 10 generations back, you would have had at most 1024 grandparents. Your Y DNA results points to only ONE of those 1024 grandparents. You would still have 1023 grandparents who could have been something entirely different. Again, a sense of proportion would help here.)
I believe I am well aware of this. Now thats again about the admixture, not about the exact lineage. Also considering that the Nasranis are thought to have originated to be from a few families these 1024 might have shared among themselves a lot of the genes.

Dear vargheese,
but still we have nasrani traditions, we celebrate pessiah, some old oral informations says nasranis used to observe sabbath. if brahimns as a whole were in nasrani, how many of us still dare to get in to brahimns taravads or get closer to those community. means we are miles far away from them. or they are intellegent in slogams raga (music) indian arts, aryurvedas study plants and making medicines. does that mean that nasanis show up any of these habits. absoluty no. nasranis know to shout in church, so much interested in no veg dishes. living sort of in a european syle means they are far away from hindu tradional lifesyles. but lot of history says some taravads came to nasranis so we cannot reject the whole facts. i think the suryainis of orthodox people not happy to accept nasranis because the portughese came a subjudated the ancient christian community here which till then called nasranis. the nomeclature of syrian christians presumeably came in to use after the split with portughese,. same the nasranis donot want to accept suryanis yet none of these group doesnt want to accept brahimns. so these conflicts create to erase lot of our orginal history.
meat eathing among syrian chrisitan is not happening from pulayas. if they would have adopted then they should bake a rat in fire and eat it. meat eathing habits came from early jewish/israelites and later middleastern immigrants.
syrian christian made meat dishes like curries with spices, dry meat in sun and keep in kitchen store and fry the meat in rainny season . i think all these invented by nasranis.
actually brahimns stuggling to become brahimns that they married different women of these heritage among nasrani community and mixed. so there are brahimn elements and semitic elements among nasranis.
That could be a reason hindu women look mythological and christian women look sort of spanish woman.
if only brahimns then why do they celebrate pessiah.

Varghese Mani
Your post is interesting. No culture in the world is pure. Everything got mixed through the course of time. It is foolishness to boast of them. We, one who believes can boast only in the ancestry of Jesus Christ alone. All other ground is sinking sand…sinking sand..
Aji Matthew

Dear John,

I was simply pointing to the fact that your name is a western form of a Hebrew name. Thats all. And your explanations are in terms with what I said. There is no question about the fact that John and Mathew were from the Hebrew names Yohannan & Mattiyahu, but Latin/Greek versions, which you agrees. A Traditional nasrani name would have been Yohannan Mathai (Aramean would be Yohannan Mattai). So my argument still holds ground and I dont think it was that offending. (Also I did mention that it was an ‘eye for an eye’ ) Not surprising that it has a wonderful meaning, in fact all these names had some kind of meaning, mostly associated with God himself (See that many names had an ‘El’). However this is not confined to the Hebrew/Greek names. Also, across the world almost all communities except nasranis name their children something meaningful, say something like ‘Jaguar Paw’ or ‘Kicking Bird’. But our community is still evolving and with our ingenuity we rampantly keeps on inventing names (very very revolutionary ones, see the sins, bins, wins and sons among us).

Now about ‘Varghese Mani’, I always had the idea that Varghese is an Armenian(Anatolian) name as Ghevarghese Sahada was from Capadochia (Capadochia nagariyil annudicha swarnadeepam….) and I never bothered to check its origin. However it is good to learn that it is the Greek Georgios and have a meaning ‘farmer’. Thanks for that anyway. But I knew that Mani is Immanuel (Christ as per Christian beliefs, but Son of Hezekiah as per Judaism), not just any other Mani (the Parsi prophet/Persian philosopher). Now, I have already given the reasoning/logic behind me calling myself ‘Varghese bar Mani’ and ‘Believe in Boasting’ is not my slogan. Nor do I boast with out substance. And when I boast, nobody corrects me that easily. Now that I am aware of our Aramaic Past, and that I have a conservative view on faith matters, I feel it fully legitimate to use ‘Varghese bar Mani’. Because thats what our naming conventions indicates. But if you are familiar with the scriptures (read NT) where in Jesus Christ says to simon, ‘Blessed are you Shimeon bar Yona’, it is incidental that the usage of ‘Varghese bar Mani’ appeared a bit of shameless self-promotion and is hence prone to being criticised as boastful. Again given that we still follows the Aramaic naming conventions from the time of Christ, I feel comfortable with any such criticism as long as it wont leave me ashamed or getting deported. And I don’t have any problem with that.

John, about your views on Judaism and orthodoxy, I too had similar views and I tried hard to be a Torah observant Christian, but only for ~2 weeks. During this short-lived encounter with mosaic customs, I tried to refrain myself from taking non-Kosher foods (I experienced the daily living to be costlier and difficult, especially with my lunch time meal which is usually Sushi which is unclean. And to me the decision as a whole was rather heart-breaking as I considered ‘Panny’ to be religion by itself with many ardent followers. ) and Observing the Hebraic Sabbath (I couldn’t though). You might be thinking that I got in to such a situation because I jumped on after prematurely concluding that we have a Jewish background. It is not so. It all started after I learned that god indeed has a true name (something which I couldn’t digest when I was approached by a Jehovah witness preacher back in 2009 whom I then ridiculed), which I am not eligible to use. But then I had some contradicting views and questions arose in my mind. I knew that the Christ wasn’t a prophet, but the fulfilment of prophecies and that he came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it and to affirm it. But he openly defies Sabbath and sits for food with the unclean, doesn’t bother his disciples not keeping the law and criticises the Pharisees. But again Christ didn’t establish any religion but was an observant Jew from A to Z. But I was familiar with the teachings of Paul where in he virtually nullifies the advantages of being circumcised. We all know that Paul, in person led the formation of Christianity, separate from the Judaism, being acceptable to the Gentiles (as he was the only apostle to the gentiles). To me he is the one whom Christ says as ‘one who comes after me’ and I find his teachings to be acceptable enough. Even though Paul and Peter had an argument about this, Peter gets corrected in a vision where he accepts (Lord instructs him to do so) the views of Chandichayan in the film ‘Oru Maravathoor kanavu’ (eee bhoomukathullathu sakalathum daivam manushyanu thinnanai srushtichathanu). So naturally I too accepted the teachings of ‘Chandichayan’.

And now, I am very much comfortable with Christianity (but I don’t consider myself a Christian though), as I believe that the Christ has come to do away with the formal practices of Judaism. (See that these formal practices are far more prevalent in the false religion which I see as cluster of very funny and illogical exercises which don’t serve any purpose – not even contributing to better blood circulation.) And to me Christianity is not a religion, but a sect of Judaism / a school of thought which believes that the Messiah has come. But Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Pentacostalisms are all religions. Even though I used to identify myself as an eastern catholic with oriental faith, I always had my own views of religion and kept my own version of Christian faith. To me Gandhi would have been eligible for salvation (from what he appears to have been). Because ultimately its your ability to see god in every other creature around you and divinity in you yourself which matters when it comes to salvation, nothing less nothing more (faith alone wont get you anywhere). That is what the Christ is pushing for. If you read the prophecy about NT in OT (Jeremiah 31 – same as the prophecy on the re-establishment of Israel), there it says ‘I will write the law on to your hearts’ and thats what Christ has done. He goes far beyond the literal meanings of the law and says that the sin is actually committed with in the heart. (This is corroborative with the psalms – psalm 51 for example). Now, it all depends on what you consider the law – To me its the ten commandments only (rest are peripheral laws to prepare the nation to the arrival of Christ the saviour). So I would be much happier if I can be a Christian (I believe one day I will be). But if I belongs to Abraham (read Jacob/Israel) (I don’t think so as I don’t belong to Pakalomattom), then I would reconsider the Mosaic customs, to whom I believe it would be an added advantage, but not an obligation though. (I am not sure here as Peter & Paul belonged to Abraham).

Now about your views on Civilizations, I don’t share a similar thought here as well. To me no human race is better than another (Admittedly the Jews exceptionally better others in all virtues of human life, but its all by grace which the Lord promises in the second commandment. ) though one might appear to be better than others at various stages of history – Egyptians (A True Black civilization) had their day (in fact the longest lasting civilization), so did the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Mayans, Romans, Mongols, the Russians, Europeans, Japanese each of them had their day. But that doesn’t mean they are better than others, but just that they had better opportunities or necessities. In that sense I don’t consider any civilization to be better than others either.

If a civilization has died out, there was an obvious reason for that – May be anther, a better one arose out of it, may be it fell to another intolerant alien civilization (Incas & Mayans), May be it was taken over by another by the sword or by the word (read faith here). Or it was struck by disease or natural calamity (indus valley). But what ever happend, a civilization is not dead unless it fails to transfer the accrued knowledge to the next even if it fails to make a lasting impression. So in that sense the Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek Civilizations are still living – the Roman Empire borrowed a lot from these, which eventually become the western civilization as seen today (American Civilization which is undoubtably the leader of this age is rampantly transforming the Chinese Civilization the next to lead being the cradle of capitalism, transferring its accrued knowledge.). So If you reverse the interpretations of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream by Daniel, you can see this.

If your view is to be taken literally, there is no better civilization than Arab (Nomadic people living in tents and moving around with the live stock, it was all the same from the time of Abraham to Gadhaffi – sorry for bracketing Abraham with Gadhaffi) not only they retain their identity to even this day, they have a lasting impact on the whole of the world. Also a civilization is not necessarily a better one just because it hasn’t moved on. Unless it changes for better, It is not.

Now about the superiority that you observes in the Torah observance over the Orthodoxy, a lot of these actually came from men. Mark 10:5 reads ” It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this percept”. So the Christ testifies these to be from Men through Moses. (After all Moses was also a man, a Murderer before being called by the God). A lot of the teachings of Established churches are not true, which I agrees.

Also it would be worth noting that in modern Israel they don’t observe the Levitate practices such as stoning or even any form of Capital Punishment (Same as many European countries) which in fact is based on the Human Rights that Christianity is based on.

Dear Mathew…

The words achan and appan are not synonyms as you said.. nasranis called their father appan as a malayalam version of the syriac word abba which means father.. In arabic also you can find the word abba wich means father.

Achan means respectable person or noble man.. It may be derrived from the aryan..any how achan was used by the uppercaste mostly by the nair caste.
Consider Paliyath achan, the famouse minister of cochin rajas.. They were the karanavars of the Paliyathu tharavadu, here achan is not a name but its the word showing respect. Simillerlly managttu achan… In nair caste the karanavars of the house also called achan which is the uncle since they have matriarchal system in encient times.

In my familly itself i heard that my grandfather and his fore fathers were known as vallukombu achan (means vallikombu valiyachan and vallikombu kochachanmar) by the native people where the achan is used as a word of respect. Even my greater grand fathers were called as Vallikkada Panicker Achan by the natives.

Dear Mathew,

Regarding the usage of ‘Achan’ among the Nair community (and other hindu communities), I think this is basically due to the fact that their father is usually one of their ‘achan’s (maternal uncle, often mother’s first cousin) by relation due to the cousin marriages which used to be prevalent among them.
I am not sure though. May be your observation is right

dear rps..
I thing u know the hystory of nasranis of kerala..but not clearilly aware with the life style that they followed upto the portuguees colonisation.
It was after the puthenkoor-pazhayakoor split that the nasranis of orthodox side started to call them as Syrian Christines.. Because they accepted the western syriac liturgy of anthioch and they made a tie up with the syriac orthodox church of anthioch. It was in anthioch that the christines first called as Christines.
In kerala they were known as nasranis or marthoma nasranis or suriyanikar or suriyani nasranis or suraya nasranis or suriyani mappila or nsrani mappila.. Even after the koonen cross oath they called them as nasranis or suriyani nasrani. The split was not on the liturgy or the name to be called.. It was against the pressure made by the portuguees to accept their bishop or pope (whom the nasranis mentioned as paranki methran). Gradually no one used the name nasrani but simply reffering them as syrian christines since the term christines is started to call the christine believers world wide. Even catholics also not mentioning them as nasranis but they just say roman catholic christine or RC-SC..so its doesnt mean that these christines are not nasranis.
Now regarding the brahminical conversion, its true that the most of the converted people in ancient time were jews present in kerala and some locals. The kerala hystory also says that in kerala the brahmin groups called namboodiris came to appear with in 6-8 centuries. But it is also there that there were some ideal invansion of brahmin familes in to kerala but they were completelly communion with the people here and they dont have any much prefference as of later times. So nobody cannt say that there wont be any brahminical conversion happed or not happened..This is a possibility. But later times there are some brahmin families who got converted to christianity.

Now the major part of this post…The lifestyle of pre-portuguees christines are almost like brahmins only because the syrian christines are adopted as a part of hindu religion. They adopted us as one of their four caste, the Vaisyas, since there is no vaisya caste in hindu community of kerala.. It was the syrian christines who was handling the business (the job of a vaisya) in kerala. Also they got the rights (dont forget about the copper plates of syrian nasranis) similler to that of a brahmin which includes dress and behave like a brahmin, wearing the poonool and kudumi, wearing the mundu in a style as the brahmins ( that is to cover his feet), cover the upper body part of the nasrani woman, etc. also we were allowed to construct the churches in the form of hindu temples and use of muthukkuda, thooku vilakku, laksha deepam, pancha vadiyam, etc during church festivals.. also our men who were recruted into armis allowed to carry weapons ( since it was only christines who were allowed to carry weapon in all his ways, even in churches also)…Like this we enjoyed a lot of rights equivilant to both brahmins and kshatriyas…. Also the hindus accepted us as one among them, they accepted our bible as the fifth veda and they called us ancham vedakar ( eventhough we dont have a complete bible or peshitta with us as that of now. The only gospel that we used in those times is the gospel of mathew)….Also the brahmins allowed us to enter into their house province and it wont make them ayitham…The ceremony of puring the oil needs the nasrani ( it is believed that if a servent of the illam or an untouchable person touches or comes nearer to any things it is believed that the purticular thing turned into condaminated or it lost its purity. In such cases they believed that, “kelan thottu asudhamayathu ouseph thottal sudhamakum”, that means if the nasrani takes the thing and then returns to the brahmin then they believed that they had repurchased the purticular thing and since it is given by an uppercaste person who practices the sudhi so the purticular thing also pure)… So if the nasrani of that time ates meat then do u thing that the savrana section will come close to us.. They considered the people who ates meat and not practicing the purity according to them as heena jathikar….This thing not happened with kerala nasrani…so the claim that it was due to jews ates meat so we are also eating meat is a wrong concept… It was actually one of the thing which the portuguees forced us to do… When the portuguees came to kerala they were shocked that here is a well organised christine community called themselves marthoma nasrani and claimes the lineage of st. thomas and most importantly they were living as a part of the ruling religion.. They are practicing the rituals that are similler to that of hindus…They wear and behave like a high caste hindu…(These statements you can see in the letters that were send to King Manual of portuguees during the portuguees colonisation in kerala)..The portuguees tried to convince us that our rituals are not allowed …in allover the world except kerala christines are suffered a lot from the ruling caste..here we enjoyed a lots of rights from the ruling caste and we lived as a vegetarians similler to the ruling caste..The portuguees forced us to ate non-veg since they used to eat meat..all this happened in the 50 years during which the entire kerala churches were controlled by the portuguees… They told us not to take bath before attending a holly mass, do not do andu bali, burry the dead body in church province ( since we used to burry the dead body in house province as of the hindus and we considered the church province should not used for such things because the church is similler to a temple..The church was the temple for the nasranis.. so it should satisfy the things for the temple of a hindu)…. Do you thing it was due to the difficulty in accepting the Pope lead to the failure of the synode of Diamper and later to the Koonen Cross oath… No it was due to the questioning of the portuguees on the rituals that we followed for generations to generations, centuries to ceturies, the rituals taught by our fore fathers… They tried to change them all and to enforce there rituals and lifestyles into us… There lifestyle, rituals and believes were unknown to us and thats why the Archadeakon told during the Synod of Diamper or Udayamperoor that ” Pathrosine njangalku ariyilla… Njangal thomayude chollum vazhipadum mathram palichu jeevikkunnavaranu..”…….So most of the present lifestyle of malayali nasrani was after the portuguees colonisation and their control over our churches for a small span of hystory…the christines who tasted the non-veg never turned back… That ws the reason for us to be known as a non-veg caste even though we still belive as an upper caste…………

Dear Varghese Mani,

I think you got it wrong. What is more important than being a ‘Torah Observant Christian’ is to believe in your heart that you are a Hebrew/Isralite and that God has a purpose for you to be a ‘Light to the World’.

It is the inner unshakeable conviction and belief that God has an unique purpose for you an Israelite, that makes one truly Jewish, that is, a member of the pride of the ‘Lion of Judha’.
Outwardly things like the Shabbath, pork, tazzels, Passover does not make or break you. The world is waiting to hear the story of Isho through the lips of a Jew. The world will look straight into your heart for who you are, they are not fooled by outwardly Shabbaths or Shofars etc..

I am not at all accusing you of being only ‘outwardly’, but only highlighting to you that the inside is most important and that you can not fail here in your ‘Torah Observancy’.

Varghese:

Sure, you can stretch the definition of civilization to include nomads. I’m sure in the same way in which you could stretch the definition of a family to include two same-sex individuals. You could stretch any concept to the point of utter silliness.

But let’s be serious. No one could possibly view Arab nomadic culture as an example of true human civilization. There were Aramean-influenced Arab cultures which were civilized (the Nabataens), but no bonafide Arab civilization in the same sense as Mesopotamia, Greece, India, Persia, China, etc.

Also, what I said about the Indians and Chinese was about their longevity: how long those civilizations actually lived and breathed and the fact that their civilization still lives. It’s not about being static and unchanging; that’s ridiculous, why would you even assume that? Are you still interested in stretching things to the point of absurdity?

I couldn’t care less about cultures which have remained static and not progressed. Rather, the Indians and Chinese have continued to develop and evolve in an unbroken chain from their genesis.

The Greeks and the Romans continue to live, but only via continuous rediscovery of their culture. They haven’t continued to develop in a continuous chain. Their date of death is known.

The Arabs were Nomads that became civilized via their contact with Greco-Roman and Persian civilization.

Dear rps,
When the portuguees came to kerala, they never expected a community of christine peaple who called themselves as marthoma nasrani who were under the leadership of the arkadeacon from the pakalomattam familly. It was a new thing for them since they dont have any knowledge abot the nasranis of kerala ( reffer the letters send to portuguees king Manual from kerala by the portuguees ). In the letter send to the King Manual of Portugal they mensioned about the peaple of kerala in which they mentioned kerala as a land of men who believed to be wise, but in reality they are not. Also they mentioned about the christines that ” On reaching here we found a group of christines who is organised under theleadership of a peraon called archdeacon and they said to be converted by the St. Thomas. They do the holly mass in syriac and used to read the gospel of Mathew. They were very strong believers in christianity. They are a part of the native hindu community and the hindu rulers allowed them a lot of special rights. Unlike other christines they were not tortured by the ruling religion but they were honoured by them..” The portuguees thought india as a nation of heathens or idol worshipers called hindus. Seeing that here is a strong community of christines who dressed like a hindu brahmin, they thought that it is far easy to convert a christine community into latine right rather than converting a non-christine group. But the nasranis of kerala were not ready to accept them since they tried to critisise their rituals and and asked to change them and accept the rituals and methodologies of the portuguees. But they thought that it was because of the St.thomas heritage that we are saying and the peshita scrolls they used is preventing them to join them. So they just burned everything. Also regarding the bishophood, they never made a keralite bishop until the 17 century. Upto that time the syro-malabar was controlled by the latin bishops from west only. It was only at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century they allowed the syro-malabar community to be stand as a reeth upto that time they were under the direct controll of the Pop. By seeing this the portuguees tried to distroy a lots of our heritages. It is not the portuguees but the british also done something like that only. They made us to educate the modern science and lituratures. But i think it as they done it for their sak only. It is to avoid the communication gap between the indians and the portuguees/english..Yes..!!! for us it is an advantage that we improved a lot due to that but also we lost a lots of our culture and heritage behind…

Dear Johncy Panicker ,
You are cleverly stating that the nasranis of Kerala had bad Hindu rituals and the Portugese colonization tried to keep their rituals and that led to Koonan cross and such events. Yes we can agree to the fact that our Christianity was influenced by local rituals. But they kept a long standing legacy without the help of thrones or crowns. It is an amazing fact that they existed here without any control or any power. The respect of Claudius Buchanan is an example. When the missionaries came and started working, the nasrani community whole heartedly accepted it. They got permission to get in to churches to teach and preach. The present ‘pallikoodams’ is the result of it. But when the missionaries tried to control accepting bribe for consecrating priests by the Cheppadu Mar Divanyaosis, the things got changed. So it is not Portugese colosnization but catholicism destroyed us. There is a tendency nowadays that books are written even encyclopedias to take the heritage of Kerala christians by Catholics. It is a lie. They have nothing to do with nasranis before Menesis came here.

Aji Matthew

RE: Geevergheese ben Mathaiyahu

Thats a good decision. I am sure you would be ridiculed a lot for this by your foes ( read friends and family).
Very much true. Geevarghese -> George was definitely a socio-political decision that the Nasranis have taken. Yes! it is always good to support the winning team. We are known for our Chamelionism, If we were under the Russian Empire, all of us would have some ‘chov’s ‘kov’ and ‘pov’s attached to our names. (Was it not the Czar who was the most powerful man for a few centuries – British were powerful, but only at the powerless like indians, not like the Ruskis). In a few years there will be many Chans and Chens among Nasranis. I am confident.

Varghese bar Mani

Dear Mr. B. Mathew,
By eating fish or any other non-vegitarian food by only one or two sects of brahmins doeasn’t means that the entire brahmins sects are non-vegetarians. The kerala brahmins who are called namboothiris are known as the most orthodox brahmin sects than any other state brahmins. They strictly follows the vegetarianism. Again for your sake of knowledge , the brahmins are of two types: pancha -gouda brahmins from north to vindhya and and pancha dravida brahmins from south to vindhya(ie, karnataka(kannada), telungu(andhra pradesh), dravida(thamilnadu & kerala, marathi(maharashtra) and gujarath.. These pancha-dravida brahmins are stricktly follows vegetarianism.Again we can divide brahmins as vegetarians and lacto-vegetarians. This is a practice of brahmins from BC onwards and this custome should be followed strictlly by brahmins. But some brahmins inhabiting the cold regions of himalaya (ie, kashmir,himachal pradesh and nepal, and the costal region of bangal) eats fish and other locally available non-vegetarian foods occationelly. They were known as pesco-vegetarians. So according to this classifications where does kerala comes. As per the hystory it was along with the second chera invansion the brahmin sects are started to see clearilly(ie, 6-7 cetury AD). So we cann’t say that the entire nasrani community was practicing vegetarianism from the beginning, where as it is evident that the dravadian kings of the starting of nasrani hystory used to eats non-vegetarians and even the local priests also. But after the arrival of brahmins this thing changed. They began to divide the people according to caste and they declared the perumals as kshatriyas. They introduced the savrnas vegetarian practice. Anyhow the local rulers known as naduvazhis also increased to the state of kshatriyas.it was after the 10th century the varna system attained so much brudality and after the perumals erra it went more worst..So how can any say that the brahmins introduced the vegetarianism in upper castes will allowe a non-vegetarians to come near to him or his illam..? how he will allow the persons to touch the sacred things like oil which he brought for purifying by the touch of the nasrani….?

Dear Mr. aji,
The hindu customes of kerala are not the customes of entire hinduism. They were the local customes in which most of them followed even before the brahminical erra in kerala.. if you travel all over the india you can find many different customes like this which are only in the purticular area only. These rituals are local only and started to practice as it is mensioned in the hinduism or any other prominent religion since the people started to follow it. It is true that we have a lots of customes which are similler to the local hindus, but we practices it in a religious way and the story we are telling is different from those that are telling by a hindu.. Since christinanity is started in kerala before the brahminical erra, there are possibilities that we are adopted a lots of local customes of that time which we can see today in christinanity as well as in the hinduism. In every region some custome will be there which we are followed from ceturies to centuries and generations to generations. Changing these things is very difficult for anyone since it is followed by generations and also it has a strong root in your mind. So the custom or ritual should be taken along with the person. Thats why most of the hindu rituals existed in christianity also. for example thought about the custome of making the kabar in the south side of the house and to do the andu bali in each year. This custome is almost over since we started to make kabar in church province only nowaydays( it was changed after the portuguees arrival only). The way we are making the andu bali is also religionised and changed in to a simple oppise or anitha. But in encient days it was like placing the food or liqour which the dead person likes most at the karbar. Rarelly in some families the custome is existed since they believe that if it has been changed then the entire generations will suffer from it. Also think about the arkadeakons kabar at kuravilangadu. instead of making the kabar in the church they make a seperate kabar (or known as savaparambu). There are a lots of other rituals in orthodox sects(both jacobyte and orthodox) like the way we are practicing “pela” after the familly members death.
Even the Catholics also followes several customes like that which existed in the earlly pagan religion. The only thing they made is they left the pagon believes and they just converted the rituals in to christianity. Consider the christmass on dec. 25.. It was actually not in dec 25th that jesus took birth.. Actually it was the festival of sun during the pagans that is conducted in dec. 25th by the romans.
One more thing , it was atleast from the 3rd century AD we have connections ( eccumenical connections) with the Church of the East. See that in the Synode of Nicea there was a bishop called John who represented both persia and india. It was us who wanted to keep only an eccumenical relationship with the church. Even once they offered a local bishop for us because of the difficulty in the communications to make between the two churches and the difficulty to travel from persia to kerala. It was us who reffuced the bishop post saying that we have arkadeakon and we dont want anybody above him. It was because we dont want to be a part of the Church of the East completelly. We want our identity seperatelly.

Regarding the buchanan’s part,… It was our nature to welcome any bishop comming from outside kerala and hour him… It is called the bharathiya sabhyatha in nowaydays. It was not only during british, but in earlly centuries also happened..We accepted the bishops regardless the church they are representing. There was insidents that our priest got ordained from bishops of another church and the church of the east asked us to rivert the ordaining…wa allowed them to enter in to our churches, do the hollimass. etc. So it was not only the protestent bishop who enjoyed our pure and open mentality.. It was right that our church was ready to go in harmony with the protestent. The kottayam ceminary was built in communion with both the orthodox church of malankara( there was no jacobyte sects or orthodox sects at that time. both are commonly known as jacobytes).. But we realised the danger that the protestents are trying to eat our church completelly , Mor divannyasios made the mavelikkara padiyola.. It was the eight statements mensioned by the protestents( since i forgotten the name of the person) made us to do in which the first four were in favour of them , ie, our priest should be practiced and got certified by the kottayam ceminari which was controlled by the protestents, etc…. Its correct that after the portuguees many things are changed in kerala christianity….

Gravestones are neither purely Western or Eastern. There are examples in both.

You can see countless examples of Easterners with gravestones and gravestones with crosses (e.g., the Nestorian crosses in China and along the Silk Road, the Armenian crosses, etc.). And there are countless examples of the opposite in the West. And vice versa.

I hope you can post that picture. What is the history of that Church? I thought that only three”old” Churches were in the possession of the protestants in Kerala: (1) the old Maramon Jacobite Church, (2) Old Syrian Church in Chengannur, and (3) the old Jacobite Church in Kottarakara. I thought everything else was a new construction after the Mar Thomites lost the court case against the Jacobites … or am I wrong? Are there more old Churches in their possession?

Dear Panikar,
The myth of brahimns to the nasranis came from persian immigrants than syrian orthodox the later immigrants which are i think suryanis. Persian culture connected bit more to the north indian culture and when persian christian, i may say had jewish background. all this migrations made their way to malabar is because early jewish settlement in kerala and nasrani community. I think there are only few are from actual hindu nair or brahimn converted people if i look through patreneal side. That is why i think being nasrani is more hetrogenic mixture that some came out from hindu but have westasian influences through mother side. and some are from westasian orgin but married indian woman to became all one. Totally people may feel suryani people or nasranis as jewish influeces yet many patrneal side came from indian. and they are actual people just have the patrneal side from jewish and syrian orgin now days because none of them are original of anything but the early immigrants were orginal.

Why were the Old christian tombs in Kerala semi-cylindrical ? That is probably because our ancestors were clever enough to foresee the future. Nasranis have Zakevus syndrome (They usually use tombs as stools when in cemetery for some processions). If it is cylendircal on top, probably no one would stand on it.

Another ridiculous excuse is the claim that the Portuguese ordered to burn our books and we did so. And from then onwards we lost all our liturgy and heritage. But of the 112 parishes only 84 decided to obey. So what happened to the rest ? I am sure that they decided not to burn, but to preserve it all. (Remember, One can pose to be your master only if you are willing to obey). So definitely there was a chance to preserve ourselves, our past, our heritage, rituals, history and uniqueness. I dont see any forign power/ism responsible, but we ourselves who left our heritage to be left to be dead and rotten. Mea culpa. (plus termites – they are born to be so)

Ancient church buildings are demolished on a daily basis, destroying vast amounts of murals and antiquities (we have a thread on this on NSC). Some of our priests are even smarter than (they think so) PNC Menon. These remarkable builders & realtors, obsessed with FOREN architecture and flush with cash have even achieved what Tipu’s Malabar campaign could not achieve. Read the passage below, taken from http://angamalybasilica.com/template.php?id=35&page=10&catid=74.
##”Ancient churches had mammoth walls (elephant walls) fixing rock lamps which surrounds the churches. These walls are very strong and its peculiar shape meant to resist the attack of elephants and enemies. The attractive mammoth walls of St. George church were demolished in 2005 and constructed new one in place of old mammoth walls.”##. See the vision of our forefathers who built such magnificent structures. But unfortunately they didn’t foresee the enemy with in.
Do you thin it is possible with out the consent of the Parishioners ? A notable builder (read Vicar) tried to pull down the millennia old Arakkuzha Church a few years ago. But the Parishioners were prudent and had a high level of dignity. Gracefully the church was spared and the Muvattupuzha valley Civilization is still breathing.

So who is here to blame ? Catholicism/Portuguese/Foolish Nasrani ? Again Mea culpa Mea culpa Mea maxima culpa.

The Portuguese may not have intended to destroy us / erase our history. But they tried to correct us (on the concept of infallibility of Rome), viewing the locals to be heretic (as per their theological views). The Irony is that today the best known sources of our past are from some of the old colonialists. Please try to realize that the Original Nasrani Raza is still preserved in the Syro Malabar Church (also the Chaldeans ). Agreeably there are lesser no of people attending Sunday mass when considered with the Saturday novena which is the crowd puller (at last we have some Jewishness left in us – see we still have Saturdays more sacred than Sundays) But who is responsible for this ? Its again the laity. IF you are a Catholic, do not be afraid ‘Not to touch the Idols or even look at them if you believe so’. Fed up with people thronging Novenas while deserting holy communion ? Choose on your own No body is holding you to ransom. You have the freedom to choose. ‘Truth will make you free’ – Buddha. That is why the Christ came. But unravelling the truth is a misery.

I agrees with you that the latinization is a threat to us being independent reeth.

Today I finished reading ‘Emergence of Hinduism from Christianity’ by MM Ninan. Interesting. A lot of good observations, based on some very revleaing facts and some fantasies. I think there is a great amount of truth in it. Check the meaning of Murasoli Maran. It is ‘Lions Roar’ + ‘Old Tamil God’. So what is the meaning of ‘Iso Maran Misiha’ ?

MathewT. George,
Thanks for the nice photographs. It is really appreciable that you have taken so much trouble. I just wondered as to the age of these graves. Any idea? I have held the view that many of the ancient graves that are there need to be dated if they are already not dated. This can be done by a technique known as radio carbon dating. No doubt you are aware of this. There are even better dating technique by finding the elements that have a short and definite time frame of atomic decay and they are said to give better results.
B.George

Dear Johcy,

You wrote ‘..the Church of the East. See that in the Synode of Nicea there was a bishop called John who represented both persia and india. It was us who wanted to keep only an eccumenical relationship with the church..’

You seem to imply that ‘Bishop John’ was from Malabar. If so, please support your claim.

To make my query clearer!
The then India included today’s Afghanistan, Pakistan, today’s India (and Kerala). There were Israelite/Nazerene/Jewish communities in Parthia, Taxila, Kalyan, Goa and Malabar, apart from some other locations. Ethopian was also at times referred to as India by the West (Greek, and Romans). Ethopia was evangilized by Syrian Nazerenes and today’s Orthodox Christians of Ethopia are the fruits of the labour of those Syrians. So, the name ‘India’ can be vastly extended to include 100,000s of square miles of the world. Even Tibet had Nazerene presence. Large chunks of history of similar ‘unheard’ places has been lost.
Please support your implied claim that Bishop John was from Malabar.

Dear Varghese Mani,
Thanks a lot for your comments. I am not hitting against the air. By God’s grace I know what I believe. You have the complete right to keep what you believe. Jesus said ” I am the truth”. I stand for truth. Apostle Paul says 1 Timothy 2:7:
7″And of this matter I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (special messenger)–I am speaking the truth in Christ, I do not falsify [when I say this]–a teacher of the Gentiles in [the realm of] faith and truth.”
I am just commenting on the truth alone. Paul warns
1 Timothy 1:4:
4Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.
1 Timothy 4:7:
7But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
This is my point of view.
Thanks for your comments.

Aji Matthew

Dear John Mathew,

The Bishop John was not from malabar… He was from persia and a syrian christine from the church of the east. I mentioned his name here to show that we have connections with persia or church of the east before the nicean synode in 325 and also we have persian bishops. But we dont have a single bishop from kerala because we reffuced it saying that we have arkadeakons.. For kerala nasranis the arkadeakons were like kings of nasranis and they never wanted any bishops above the arkadeakons..

Dear Johncy,

To keep you informed, Kerala is aflame with knowledge that Bishop John had represented the Malabar Nazerenes at the Nicene Synod. We hear it spoken from the pulpit, in tea rooms and elsewhere. Unless some ‘respected’ scholar addresses this issue, I am afraid this very possible myth will be ‘real’ in the minds and hearts of our people.

Simply because New York has a population of over 8 million does not mean that in AD 325, there was a sizable Nazerene group in Malabar with a Bishop. We do not even have reasonable evidence that the Jathi Moopans were present in Malabar in AD 325. However, DNA evidences mention that Cohens may have arrived in Malabar roughly between AD 350 to AD 500.

Reference about ‘Bishop John from India’ persists and I would advise to take it at it’s face value. That is, Bishop John would have been from Parthia/Afghanistan, Taxilla, Pakistan etc.. which were all called India at some time or other and not from Malabar. This is what commensence/evidences speak. Correct me if I am wrong.

It was not John Mathew who put the query to you, but me George Mathew, though we are both from Canada.

Dear Varghese Mani,
You seemed to be second Menesis. Your argument that destruction was an excuse shows nothing but the job of Menesis. Kindly go and study what goon Menesis did against Christians and Kerala. Your argument that you destroyed only 84 out of 112 parishes, shows that you like to destroy everything. When Joseph Methran wanted to catch and kill Marthoma, he did not get Marthoma. When Joseph understood that they were at Mulanthuruty, he sent military to kill him but cleverly Marthoma escaped. Metran got only the vehicle of Marthoma. He burnt it and said I could burn Marthoma like this! Pope is going to all countries and pleading sorry for heinous crimes Catholics did against christians and other religions. If he comes to Kerala, I will demand him to do it. The academic council of Bangalore Dharmaram college decided not to celebrate the 400 year centenary Synod of Diamper was because it was not legitimate. So please don’t justify what happened. We can’t change history but can accept the truth.
Aji Mathew

Aji ,
I am in total agreement with your sentiment that the Pope should apologize for all the ills that the then Portuguese RC church and Menezes did to the Nazrani community. If a Pope can go to Israel and pray at the Holocaust memorial and offer apologies to the Jews then this is also quite legitimate and most appropriate. I would also like to suggest that historians should look at the Koonen oath incident and decide whether it qualifies to be considered as a struggle for independence.
B.George

To: Varghese Mani

Of course, Zakkayi! The man on the sycamore tree. True, I have seen so many people walking over graves during funerals.

Varghese: What is wrong with Syro Malabar Church if you compare with any of the Indian Christian communities. There are not many problems inside the Church now . It is much better than the other sister churches which struggles to keep themselves together even being very small in size. Syro Malabar Church is also doing good missionary activities. I was told that now there are more than 100,000 believers who are converts in different states of Kerala. Even the New elected Major Archbishop was the Bishop of a missionary diocese, which definitely says the direction church is going in future.

Have you heard about Patriarch Mar Yahballaha III ?

Before the Udayamperoor Sunahados, the bishops in Malabar were Catholic Chaldeans. We were under Church of East before the Chaldeans.

After the division in fifth century some of the Church of East Patriarch did had cordial relations with Rome and some of them joined Rome as well.

Let me share an interesting document from the Vatican Secret Archives. I am sure some of you might have heard about the great Patriarch of Church of East, Mar Yahballaha III (1245–1317).

Before elected as the Patriarch, he was known as Monk Morqous bar Turkaye ( Son of turk). His origins were Mongol and Chinese on mothers side and turk on father side. In 1281 he was elected as the Patriarch of Church of East with the name of Mar Yahballaha III.

In 1287, Patriarch Mar Yahballaha III send his profession of faith to Pope Nicholas IV. In 1302, the Patriarch Mar Yahballaha III send another document to Pope Bonafice VIII.

Please see the second document in the following link :

http://www.2shared.com/photo/eEfp0e-m/Pallium_of_Mar_Yahballah.html

Here is my translation:

The letter is written in black vegetable ink. On the lower part is the symbol of Church of East “ the universal cross”. First five lines are written in Syriac. Following is the translation. “ In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. To our most holy father and lord Bonafice: the unworthy and humble Yahballaha, who by the grace of our lord Jesus Christ has been elected Catholicos and Patriarch of Orient, ask your holiness to bless him. The rest of the document is written in Arabic except the last line

There is certainly a difference between hatred driven rambling and physical evidences.

Dear Varghese Mani,
Thanks for your long reply. We can agree to disagree. I can see the ardent Catholic in you. I am not against what you believe but I stand for what I believe. It is happy that you accept the sins committed by Catholicism in India. So I request you to tell Pope to denounce ‘infallibility’ theory. You put a clever idea that before the Synod of Diamper there was polygamy among priests and Menesis stopped it. Haven’t you read that some popes got married and had many children? The sad death of Abhaya can tell what happens at convents. I plead you to make a truthful survey among the priests and catholic nuns about their holy life. I am not going to support Jacobites or Marthomites or Protestants. I was a communist. Later when communism collapsed I watned to be Sanyasi like Swami Vicekananda. While his reading “Vivekananda Sahithya Sangram” his lecture about Jesus Christ captivated me to know our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He forgave my sins, healed my sicknesses, delivered from every bondage and blessed. I am nobody, telling everybody about somebody (Jesus Christ) who can save anybody. Let me put the gist of what I believe.
1. By God’s grace there were Christians in Kerala from the very beginning of Gospel.
2. A Thomas or two Thomas might have come to Kerala but Apostle Thomas did not come.
3. There were immigrations from Persia, Syria and missionaries and priests of other churches.
4. Kerala Christians in general were not under any dominion. There were bishops and priests came as migrants or missionaries but but they could not influence us.
5. Kerala Christians did not follow any priest hood till the coming of Vasco Da Gama.
5. Catholics got root only after Vaso Da Gama’s visit to Kerala. All other stories they tell are simply lies.
6. Antioch got place in Kerala only after the Synod of Diamper.
7. The Missionaries helped much to the growth of Kerala Christians. At least we got education and Bible in our hands.
8. There are faithful followers of our Lord in all congregations. All the churches we see today are started by priests, for priests and of priests.
Jesus was against priests and I too as his disciple.
This is what I believe. I have no other intention but to stand with truth. But if any one comes against it, I am not going to argue but will stand for Christ.

In Christ,

Aji Matthew

Dear Aji Mathew You have too much hatred of catholic church. If you read Jornada you will understand that it is the Portuguese padroado rule and the unauthorised activities of Dr Menesis that caused the problems in the church of St thomas christians. St Thomas christians of kerala rejected the padroado rule by the koonan cross oath. From then on they (both pazhayakoor and puthiyakoor) have never been under the padroado rule. When mar thoma was elected by 12 priests as methran he started acting as a Bishop invalidly since he was not consecrated as a Bishop canonically by laying hands of other bishops. He continued to claim himself as a Bishop and wore the clothes of a Bishop at the same time he demanded Bishop Joseph to consecrate him as a bishop. . Bishop Joseph told him first he should say that he is not a bishop then only he can consecrate him as a Bishop but he refused. Then to fool the people priest Ittithomman kathanar stole a letter written by Pope (written in latin) from Thodupuzha church and read it in many churches as if it is a letter written by Pope to ordain mar thoma as a Bishop (actually it was not such a letter) to convince the people, since the people regarded Pope as the head of the Universal church (Catholic church). Later this plot was understood by all. All these activities caused the loss of credibility of marthoma. Bishop causing lot of people to defect him. Joseph was ready to ordain mar thoma as a Bishop but he was not ready to say he is not a bishop. Then by by missionaries that Aji means the CMS missionaries I guess. They are protestants. St thomas christians of kerala have nothing to do with protestants since they reject all traditions of church and other so many reasons. What a name is this Protestant church? what does it mean? . The pazhayakoor was under carmelite missionaries from 1653 to 1896. From then on indegenous Bishops took charge. Now the Pazhayakoor is an autonomous church in catholic fold. It has reinstated the COE qurbana in malayalam. Instead of fighting each other we should try to unite under a common church. Johny Kuriakose

The 32 churches which where with the Arkadiyakon in Seventeenth century did exist as ONE Church and stayed together with out much trouble until the arrival of British. It was not the Portuguese who destroyed them. It was the British. Under the Anglican British missionaries influence and strategy they are now split in to many : Orthodox, Jacobite, Independent, Marthoma etc. Marthoma was even split in to Evangelical in its over 100 years of existence. Each one of them being so small is still having very difficulty to keep their people together. All these are thanks to the Anglican missionaries. It is utmost foolishness that still this fake protestant wants to criticize Catholics for the satisfaction of his inferiority complex on something Catholics has no role.

He is talking about Abhaya case, priests etc. What has that to do here ? It sounds as if people are not aware of the scandalous practice among the Protestants. ? Are you nuts ?

I know you don’t understand history. What I have posted earlier is a profession of faith by Patriarch Mar Yahballaha III of Church of East.

It is the Proestants who have no role in Kerala Christian history. I don’t think I need to take any lesson from a 21st century exported Protestant who still cherishes the stories told by Kukiri Sayipp to infiltrate in the Puthencore. Dont you have any scholarship ? Why do you still need the Kukiri Sayipp ?

Catholics makes up some 75% of the Indian Christians. In Kerala also they are more or less 75 % of the total Christian population. This is just because the Portuguese, Jesuit, Franscian, Dominican etc converted the people and made good contributions for the survival of existing Christians here. Look at you, you still need the infiltration strategy employed by Anglicans. You still need the fake stories told by Kukiri sayyip to mislead the people.

Menezis was just in Kerala for a couple of months and all the Christians of Kerala was not so fragile to be under Jesuit missionaries for some sixty years if they did not want. The 84 Churches which makes some 70% of the Christians of Kerala in Seventeenth century still exist as a Single Church with their old liturgy, traditions and practices. I know fakes like you talk about Menezis for your infiltration and diminish the Catholic contribution. At the same time I know this is coming out of your inferiority complex. Anyways what you deserve is an apology from Anglicans. It has nothing to do with Catholics .

Dear Varghese Mani

I agree with you to some extent. “The streets of any great world city now throng with an extra ordinary diversity of ethnic types. Yet research suggests that every one of them- indeed, everybody on the planet- has inherited a small piece of genetic material (mitochondrial DNA), from one women who lived over 190,000 years ago in Africa.” That means we can trace our ancestry to Eve not Adam.

Bible says we all are like Adam born of flesh living for the sole purpose of responding to our five senses without any consideration for the neighbor. The tree on the middle represents that. (If you live selfishly you will die.) The tree of life represents that you can have everything but always consider your neighbor also. When you feel hungry you can eat but not the food stole from your neighbor but by working for it. You can have sex but only with your wife, not with your neighbor’s wife or mother or daughter or sister, and so on. This will give you eternal life. God’s will is always “love your neighbor as thyself”.

Our flesh is always selfish. Paul says, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

Jesus says, John 3-5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be bon again.’

Kingdome of god is within you. It is not beyond the Universe but it is a state of mind that enable you to love your neighbor, love your enemy, and so on. Jesus came to the world to propagate the gospel of the kingdom of heaven which He says is within you.

He explained it in His Sermon on the Mount, many parables and discourses. Yes you must have a change of Heart. Baptism also mean a change. It represents a change of heart. The act of baptism or any other sacraments alone will not do but real change will be necessary.

When I was talking about Jesus’ Gospel to a Hindu friendin north India,he told me ‘It is a way of life and not a religion”. Very true.

Christianity is a way of life and not a religion. But Church leaders made it a religion.

A senior friend of mine told me “ had jesus be born in a Brahmin family he would have worn a poonool, follow all the customs of Brahmins, but at the same time he would have reprimanded them of their hypocrisy, and propagate the gospel of the Kingdom of God/heaven. He would have stressed Love your enemy. (Sthyagraham only.)

Mahathma Read Tolstoy’ s book Kingdom of God is within you’ that helped him follow Jesus. To inherit heaven you need not follow sacraments of Christian church. But follow Jesus. Dr. Stanly johns once spoke in Maramon Convention “ Heaven without Mahathma is poor. I heard it.

The Kingdom of Good is within you, in your heart. Not in your DNA. Cohen or otherwise.

“Varghese: What is wrong with Syro Malabar Church if you compare with any of the Indian Christian communities.”

I agree, but only when you compare with other Nasrani Churches. But we should be better. We are an independent reeth (sui iuris) under Catholic Church, but we are not using that freedom. We should preserve our identity. Catholicism is undeniably Apastolic, ancient and one of the most traditional (truely orthodox in practices), but we have some fundamental flaws in the theology, most importantly we dont use the 10 commandments as they were originally. We have well evolved theology, but that has led to practices/beliefs like limbo, purgatory, not allowing full burial rights for sinners, etc . Also traditionally we Nasranis never allowed any idols in churches, except the Cherubims. Now people are more often turning to idolatry. Idols shouldnt be allowed, at least in the sanctuary.

Winning converts isnt great when the Church fails to lead the existing followers in the true MARGAM.
See nasranifoundation.org for some known issues with in the church about latinization, not having permission to setup parishes outside kerala etc..

thanks

“Even Catholic historians do not justify the vandalism of Menesis”

Aji, Can we not forgive this man ? Unfortunately we cant go back to the past to correct him. Time machines are are just fictional only. He lived nearly 5 centuries ago. Let him be judged by the Christ. Not good that you carry a lot of unwanted old luggage. Throw some out of your ship for a smooth sail. I apologize for him.

“I am totally confused now. Totally. Can someone help me?”

Of course. I do apologize for putting you on such a misery. It was me who put the Vellalla Chetty thesis on board. I am afraid the Knas would arrange a lynch mob to send me back to Mars.

Please read “http://www.sishri.org/velir.html”. This clearly states who the vellalars are. They are just like the Nair/Pillais, A community of those who were Born out of wedlock( from the 3rd century onwards eventually becoming the power brokers by the12 century). Vellalars are today some 20 Million in numbers, not surprising if they have managed to produce quite a few great people. (We Nasranis are just 38-42 Lakhs only. So we arent second to anyone.

The above mentioned paper is much informative. Would give you a good idea of the Tamil History.
Also wiki vellallar.

Now about your question #1,
Even though the Church of East was in communion with the Holy See, It was an orthodox church. Now the Nasranis were overseen by the COE, but they allowed us to keep all our unorthodox practices, which were on the other hand limited to our Civil life. (Our Liturgy was almost the same as that of COE – I may be wrong here). Since the COE never corrected us, we had many practices which were unacceptable to the Portuguese and the Catholic Church in general. See that Churches in communion with the Holy See are given independence in many matters even though we aren’t aware of/using that.

Dear all,

Now I know from where the word Achan came from and why the Hindus (Nairs & Ezhavas) use it address their Dads. Achan is from Tamil – meaning “preceptors of martial arts”.

Ref: http://www.sishri.org/velir.html

Dear Varghese

In case of Syro Malabar the comparison has to be made with other Indian Christian communities or other Eastern Churches . There is nothing wrong with Syro Malabar. Catholic theology is not Orthodox, it has evolved over time.It will be in future also. I don’t think any one can say Catholics don’t practice 10 commandments. Purgatory, Statutes are all part of the Catholic evolution and that’s not idolatry . There is some difference between latin rite churches and other eastern catholic churches in their views of Purgatory and Statutes. So its essentially up to the independent individual churches to have their own view based on their theology and tradition. I don’t think there is much point in complaining being a Catholic, as its up to the individual churches to have their own views.

I dont think there is anything wrong with the Margam, Syro Malabar leads its faithful. A church is meaning less if it can t spread the gospel. Syro Malabar is doing good in that aspect. It should be the ideal way to measure a church.

COE was split with universal church ( catholic-orthodox) in fifth century. The great schism of 11th century was between Catholic and Orthodox Church. Even though there have been not much continuous formal communion after the split in 5th century there have been communion with Catholic Church and Church of East in between. Patriarch Mar Yahballaha’s palium I posted is proof for one of those communions. I am not any clergy. I am just one who reads here and make occasional comments.

Dear goergekutty,

By the presence of the chaldean catholic bishops in kerala during the synode of udayamperoor ( synod of diamper) is not showing that the kerala nasranis are under the catholic church or under the chaldean catholic church. We used to accept bishops from the other shore of the sea without regarding the church or faith they are following. There were many bishops from Church of the east, syria, etc. There also evolved situations that our priest got ordained by a bishop who was not from church of the east and the church of the east disqualified the ordination since the bishop was not from persia. So it was our mentality that we accepted any bishop who crosses the sea and comes here in kerala. But we always stood as the independent church even from the church of the east. With the church of the east we had only maintained eccumenical relationships not we were under them. Whenever any necessity like ordaining a priest or giving mommodeesa to a believer ( in ancient times only bishops are allowed to give mammodeesa), etc. and the appostolic church will respond. We will give kandukazhcha to the bishop who comes from the church of the east and send him happily. Apart from that we never allowed them to control us. It was after the portuguees only there evolved a situation for the part of the nasranis known as arkadeakons party to ordain a bishop and they ordained the then arkadeakon as marthoma 1st by the laying hands of 12 priests which was not canonical. It was due to this problem only we went to the syriac orthodox church of antioch .
Also nobody cannt say that the portuguees didnot harm the kerala christines and it was the protestent tried to harm them. Because both used different tactics in making the kerala nasranis under their bishops. The portuguees used a brudal way while the protestents tried to approach the situation wisely by first making friendship and by eat it completelly as they were supposed to help us. But towards both the situations the nasranis stood up which ended in the coonen cross oath against portuguees and rom ( eventhough they succeded in making a part of the nasranis as their part) , and through the mavlikkara padiyola against the protestents or the anglican church.

Dear Mathew T george,

The church of the east went in communion with the catholic church doesnot means that the kerala church or karala nasranis also go under the catholicsm since we have only an eccumenical relationship with the Church of the East. I dont know why all forgets/ skip the word eccumenical relationship or no one clearlly studies about our relationship with Church of the East. It was purelly eccumenical and we were not completelly under them. It was arkadeakon who was like a prince for the nasranis like azhvancheri thambrakkal for the kerala brahmins. We request the COE for help whenever a neccessity like ordaining of a priest, giving mamodeesa, koodasha of the church,etc. occures and we go to them only to learn the biblical parts and other practices we should perform while qurbana. Apart from that we dont have any much relationships with them. Yes, its true that there was several bishops who migrated to malabar from the holy sees and we welcomed them and honoured them. The bishops represented India or kerala doesnot mean that they can take care of our internal matters or they can control our lives. No, for the internal issues there was arkadeakon whome we believed to take proper decisions.

Also Mr. Georgekuty mentioned about Mor Yabhallaha who declare complete union with rom, then why the church split in to two on later centuries, Chaldean Catholic church which is completely in union with rom and Assyrian Church of the east which is not…

Dear Varghese Mani,
Thanks for your comments.
Let me state my views which you have commented. Your words are given first and then my response.
You consider To be honest I believe Catholicism is the best religious platform for a Christian. (Also to me Christianity isn’t a religion). I have the difficulty to believe because of the crimes they did against other Christians and religions from fourth century to sixteenth century.
I am happy that you yourself have explained why celibacy is better for the priests with reference to different cases. (Chepat/Konat malpans, Popes being married, Sr.Abhaya). Please do not interpret my words wrongly. I have the view that as the LORD says, those who have the gift can be celibacy otherwise forcing or banning marriage is of the doctrine of spirit. Regarding Sr.Abhaya, why don’t you suggest as “Catholicism is the best religious platform” to say the truth behind the cold blood murder of a poor girl? If Catholics are really honest, please tell who killed Sr.Abhaya, so we can avoid all the cases in the court.
But if you are wrong somewhere, let me correct you. 1. I dont know what happens in a convent. But I know what happens in the convent. The nuns have all kinds of films the other films in their possessions. They have boy friends. I am stating it with clear proof, not accusing.
But to stereotype the entire community for one or two persons deeds is bad. I have not portrayed the community but mentioned of the hypocrisy catholics are doing in the name of celibacy. There are many who practice celibacy without becoming priests in all communists. We are not condemning.
Not surprising that many here see you as an imposter, a fake. This is what the Pharisees and Saducees told about Jesus. I get what Jesus got for telling the truth. Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.
Aji, I have to ask you why are you still in bondage ? I am very thankful to God who delivered me from the bondage of priesthood which you are under.
Please understand that you dont have the power to judge people. I do not judge people. But as long as the government of India gave me freedom to express my view, I can say. Let God, the righteous judge, judge me and everyone.
I am not going to correct you on any of those except “Christ was against Priests” Please, read Matthews gospel Chapter 23. Can’t you find the similarities between your priests and Pharisees and Sad u sees?
You finishes by ‘in Christ’ I am using in Christ because20And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.John 5:20
Thanks a lot.
In Christ,
Aji Matthew

Really sad that many among us are still stuck in the 16th Century. Many have extreme hatred towards the Catholic Church and the Portuguese. We should be thankful to the Portuguese for the prosperity that our state, especially our community is enjoying today – the Rubber, Cashew and Nutmeg all were brought to our land by the Portuguese, not to mention our favourite dish – Kappa.
So if you thinks that your spiritual life was compromised because of the Portuguese inquisition, relax. They have made at least some material contribution to your lives (a lasting & lifting one).

Dear Varghese

The 32 churches which where with the Arkadiyakon in Seventeenth century did exist as ONE Church and stayed together with out much trouble until the arrival of British. It was not the Portuguese who destroyed them. It was the British. The Puthecore is still living in lies. Under the Anglican British missionaries influence and strategy they are now split in to many : Orthodox, Jacobite, Independent, Marthoma etc.

Marthoma Church was even split in to Evangelical in its over 100 years of existence. Whom do they blame for this ? The Catholics or the Anglican Protestants ?

Each one of them being so small is still having very difficulty to keep their people together. It is Kukiri Sayipp who destructed them and still they propagate the lies told by Kukiri Sayipp. What right they have to critize and blame Catholics for the destruction done by Anglicans ?

Portuguese spread the gospel in India. 2 % of the Indian population are Christians thanks to the Portuguese. The very big Syro Malabar Church ( 84 of the 116 pre Portuguese churches) is small in front of the latin Church in India. There are no divisions, no splits in latin church in India which has an existence of at least six centuries.

Look at the Anglican created churches in India ( the different Protestant Groups). I cant even count how many times they split in their decades of existence. The problem in Puthencore is the lies told as history and the extreme protestantisation and it has nothing to do with Catholics.

The Lebaneese example may be repeated in Kerala in future. At that time none of these stories are going to help the Christians of Kerala to survive. There is nothing one can achieve by these fighting and trying to steal others believers. If there are real missionaries, either Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant, they should be ready to suffer and evangelize than taking short cuts of nonsense bashings.

Dear Johnsy

What nonsense is this ecumenical relationship ? History need to studied keeping in my mind of the situations of the past. The Second Vatican Council did not happen in fifth century. The world council of churches did not even exist some decades earlier. Does the Syro Malabar believers say they have an ecumenical relationship with their head Major Arch Bishop Mar Alenchery ? Does the Kottayam and Kollam diocese in Indian Orthodox Church say they have an ecumenical relationship with Baselios Mar Thoma Paulose II ? What they say is there is a hierarchical relationship as the head has authority to ordain priests and other things.

Ecumenical relationship and hierarchical relationship are different. The Jacobites and Catholics have very good ecumenical relationship. It doesnot mean that Jacobite can ordain Catholic priests or vice versa . Jacobites has is no authority on Catholic priests or parishes. Hence it is only an ecumenical relationship with each other.

Saint Thomas Christians had hierarchical relationship with Church of East and later on with Chaldean Catholic Church. This is simple fact.

When the Portuguese arrived in India in 1504, the hierarchy of Church of Saint Thomas Christians consists of a Metropolitan and three suffragan Bishops. Mar Yahballaha (Jaballaha) was the metropolitan. Mar Denah, Mar Jacob and Mar John were the Bishops. They were here in Malabar send by their Patriarch, the Patriarch of the Church of East.

In 1565, Angamaly was made a Metropolitan See. The first Synod at Angamaly was convoked in 1583 by Mar Abraham. Mar Abraham was the last Chaldean Metropolitan ( He was a Chaldean Catholic Metropolitan) who ruled the undivided Church of Saint Thomas Christians. He died in 1597 AD. Syond of Diamper was convoked after his death. So the Saint Thomas Christians were under Catholic Chaldeans before the Synod of Diamper. So they were Catholics. There is no scope of any discussion in this. All the Bishops in Malabar whom we have documentary proof such as those of 13th century and 15th and 16th century are only from the Church of East and later on the Catholic Chaldean Church.

After the Syond of Diamper also for some sixty years all the Christians of Kerala were Catholics. Then only one third of the total Christians that is only 32 churches of the 116 Churches went in communion with the Antioch Syriac Orthodox Church. They were broken down in to different churches under the British destruction in later centuries.

If some of the Thomas Christians denominations are living in lies having no courage to correct the lies they have spread, it is their problem. These ecumenical crap is a Protestant lie. Protestants where no where in picture and hence they don’t have any documents or any details about any of these things. They may be confusing themselves by looking at history with current set up of their World Council of Churches. I don’t care if the Protestants or any others have problem in accepting history.

5) The King of Cochin, writing to Pope Gregory XIII a letter dated Cochin 2 Jan. 1576 meant for recommending the Christians of St. Thomas to him, especially informed the Pope the oppressions that Mar Abraham suffered from the Portuguese. The King suppliantly beseeched the Pope to concede indulgences to the Church dedicated to Blessed Virgin Mary and erected by George the Archdeacon of Angamale

6) A letter of Pope Gregory XIII sent to the King of Cochin by way of a reply under date 21st. December 1576 in which the Pope praises the King’s benevolence regarding the Christians and assures him that he would in no way tolerate the Portuguese to oppress Mar Abraham, and informs him that he has ordered to grant the indulgences requested by the Archdeacon George.

7) Another letter of Pope Gregory XIII dated 21st Dec. 1576, to the Legate of the King of Cochin in which the Pope again praises the King’s benevolence regarding the Christians and he says that he has ordered the requested indulgences.

8) A letter of the King of Cochin dated 6th January 1579 sent in reply to the one of Pope Gregory XIII in which the King expresses his joy on receiving the Pope’s reply and he assures the Pope that he would always favour the Christians as his Holiness commands.

9) A petition (the author of the petition is supposed to be a Jesuit missionary) sent over to the Roman Pontiff in which the petitioner highly commends to the Pope the Archbishop, Mar Abraham and George the Archdeacon of Angamale earnestly beseeching him to recommend the above mentioned Prelates to the Kings of Portugal and Cochin and the Viceroy of Goa as well as to the ordinaries of the Latin Rite residing in India. The petitioner would moreover wish very much that the Holy Father grants a plenary indulgence to those who visit the Church of St. Hormisdas Abbot, recently constructed at Angamale by the said Mar Abraham and that Mar Abraham would be highly gratified if some spiritual consolation were given him according to the cravings of his heart.

Attn: Varghese Mani

Thanks so much. What you said makes perfect sense. That we were in communion with Rome, but autonomous with freedom to choose our way of worship. And Dom Menezes wanted to ‘purify’ us. That is logical.

So, we were not actually Catholics like Mr Georgekutty says, correct?

13) A conjoined letter of the Chaldean Prelates sent in 1580, to Pope Gregory XIII, on the occasion of the election of Mar Simon Denaha as their Patriarch, contains many honorific titles for the Supreme Pontiff, whom they style openly as the Father and Head of all Christendom, Successor to Blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles and the Vicar of Christ upon earth. They moreover implore with deep respect and submission for themselves and for their faithful the blessings and prayers of the Holy Father

14) Mar Elia, the Archbishop of Amida in the year 1580 had taken an account both of the Chaldean Church in Assyria and of the state of the Church in Malabar which he presented to the Holy Father, and the same year he had come to Rome as a representative of the Chaldeans for getting Mar Simon Denaha confirmed as their Patriarch and receiving the sacred Pallium for him

15) Mar Abraham, Archbishop of Angamale, in his letter sent on the 13th Jan. 1584 to Pope Gregory XIII. informs him of the Synod convened by him, of the pride his subjects took of being in the Catholic faith, of the necessity of establishing there a new Seminary for the training up of youth for the sacred ministry, and of the necessity of increasing the number of the Jesuit fathers in that province. Lastly he left no stone unturned in order to have Mar Simeon, on whose account many disturbances had arisen among both clergy and laity, expelled as soon as possible from this country, which he actually executed with the advice and help of the Franciscan fathers. And Mar Abraham asks for the Pope’s confirmation to the election of the Archdeacon, George of Christ, as Bishop of Palur, Coadjutor and successor to him. This election was made by the power granted him (Mar Abraham) by the Assyrian Patriarch

Dear Georgekutty,

In your Post : 53885 You qouted the letter of Mar Yaballah III to state that the church of the east was in fully communion with Rom and became the chaldean catholic church and so the malabar nasranis were catholics even before the Portuguees. You also gave the translation of the letter written by Mar Yaballaha III to Pop Benedict XI.

Check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahballaha_III

This states that yaballaha III send letter to rom addressing pop Benedict XI for the communion between both the churches. But this union was not took place . It was the Bishops (ie, Nestorian Bishops) refuted this union.

Re: Arkadeyakon Tomb (semi Cylindrical)
Dear B George,
you are right. The tombs in Jewish Cemetery, cochin are all semi cylindrical.
searching jewish cemetery Cochin in Google Images brings a lot of photos. see http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQIffTI1dlTjpJ9J42zG06ubuxbQeX2uMEkXpJ7lxNAmGEN0AdUyA

When our delegation met the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Kerala Sri Oommen Chandy at his residence in Trivandrum with the humble request to grant a Hody Land Pilgrimage subsidy to Christians of all denominations and Churches from Kerala on the pattern of such subsidies given by other States like Andhra Pradesh he had asked us for greater details of those schemes which we were unable to provide at that time. Recently the various AP Govt. Depts.kindly placed at my disposal, during my stay in Hyderabad, the original GOs of the Ap Govt. , its Minorities Development Finance Corporation’s schemes, and the schemes of the AP Govt. Minorities’ Welfare Dept., in addition to the High Court’s Verdict vacating all stays to the implementation of the Pilgrimage subsidy scheme, which it would be useful to be studied by all interested in promoting the spiritual revival of our people by visiting the Holy land and environs.

From
Chev. Prof. George Menachery
Chief Editor St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India
Member Archdiocesan Pastoral Council
Member Of the Governing Body Christian Chair, Calicut University
Pallinada
Ollur Kerala 680306
09846033713, 04872352468, 04872354398
[email protected],[email protected]
http://www.indianchristianity.com, http://www.nazraney.com, http://www.menachery.org

To
Sri Oommen Chandy
Honb’le Chief Minister of Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram

Respected Sir,

We the representatives of the Nazraney Maha Kudumbayogam (Myself as President) had visited you at your residence and submitted a petition signed by the President, Secretary, Office Secretary, and Fr. K. M. George of the Pazhaya Seminary humbly requesting you to kindly grant a State subsidy to the Holy Land pilgrims from Kerala. At that time you had kindly consented to consider the the also the desire for setting up a St. Thomas University, to make arrangements for the protection and conservation of ancient Christian monuments, and to consider the Holy LandPilgrimage subsidy. However when you asked for details of such subsidies granted by other South Indian States we were unable to provide the details during such a short interview.

I am herewith sending the copy of the AP Government Order granting Holy Land Pilgrimage Subsidy to the tune of Rs. 20,000/- per pilgrim.The detailed GO also lays down conditions for tour operators and parameters for the aselection of pilgrims. In the first year AP Govt. had set aside an amount of Rs. Two Crores for the purpose to subsidise the pilgrimage of 1000 pilgrims.

This and the other exemplary schemes of the AP Minorities Development Finance Department are also enclosed.whichcould perhaps be followed by your honourable Goverment also.

Also enclosed is the Court Judgement of the AP High Court setting aside all objections raised by interested parties against the granting of the said subsidy.

We had also met in Trivandrum other ministers and legislators, including Sarvasri K. M. Mani, T.M. Jacob, P.J.Joseph, K.C. Joseph, Abdl Rabb, and the MLAs C.F.Thomas, Mons Joseph, Ravindranath, M. P. Vincent and C. who all expressed their support and goodwill for all these efforts, and many had also asked for copies of the AP GO which I was able to procure from the AP Ministry in Hyderabad recently.

Awaiting your government,s kind and favorable response and action,

Yours faithfully,
Prof. George Menachery.

Copy to: Hon’bleMinister Sri K. M. Mani
Sri Abdul Rubb
Sri. T. M. Jacob
Sri P. J. Joseph
Sri K. C. Joseph

Copies also to Sri P. C.George
C. F. Thomas
Mons Joseph
Prof. Ravindranath
M. P. Vincent
& Other Hon’ble Minsters and Legislators we could not meet on that occasion.

Copy of letters recd. From AP with copies of AP GO on Subsidy to Holy Land Pilgrims and High Court Order setting aside all objections to proceeding with the Holy Land Pilgrimage Subsidies and also Summary of Schemes of the AP Govt. Minorities Welfare Finance Corporation and AP Govt Minorities Welfare Department.

Dear Prof.George Menachary,

Just a short note to send you the attached GO concerning the Holy Land
Pilgrimage for Christians of Andhra Pradesh.

All the best for your efforts to get similar benefits to the
Christians in Kerala.

With warmest regards,

Dr.Jetti A.Oliver

JAO/kbm

Dear Prof. George Menachery,

Hope you had a safe travel back home. This note is to send you the
attached copy of the judgment of the AP High Court lifting the ban on
pilgrimage of Christians to the Holy Land duly sponsored by the
Minority Welfare Department of the Govt. of A.P0. Attached also are
a few paper clippings as desired.

With warmest regards,

Dr.Jetti A.Oliver

JAO/kbm

Copy of the petition personally handed over to your good selves at the Chief Minister’s residence, Trivandrum by the Mar Thoma Nazraney Maha Kudumbayogam:

Petition made by the delegates empowered by the extraordinary conference of the St. Thomas Maha Kudumbayogam and invited scholars held at Kuruvilangad on 3rd July, 2011 to the Hon’bleChief Minister of Kerala Sri Oommen Chandy Esq.:, Thiruvananthapuram.

Hon’ble Chief Minister, Sir,

We the delegates of the St. Thomas Maha Kudumbayogam and representatives of the scholars and cultural activists of the various Nazraney Christian Denominations take this opportunity to bring to your attention the incomparable record of service rendered by these Thomas Christian Communities to the people of Kerala in the fields of culture, education, and social service and to request you and your respected Government to kindly take the initiative to implement and realise the following :

1. To establish a University in the name of St. Thomas the Apostle of Christ who was the founder of the Christian Faith adhered to by the lakhs and lakhs of members of the Syro Malabar Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Jacobite Syrian Church, the Mar Thoma Church, the Syro Malankara Church, the Chaldean Church and many other Churches and denominations of Kerala, on the pattern of the Sri Sankara Sanskrit University of Kalady or the Mahathma Gandhi University of Kottayam.

2. To allow a pilgrim grant and/or subsidy to all Christians of Kerala, irrespective of sect or denomination or rite desirous of making a Pilgrimage to the places associated with Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament and the Venerable Fathers of the Old Testament in the Holy Land to promote spirituality and true religious fervour.

3. To instruct the Departments of Archaeology and Tourism to protect, conserve, and popularise all the different Jewish and Christian Monuments in the State, including the Megalithic monuments..

Yours faithfully,
1. Rev. Dr. K.M. George., Old Seminary, Kottayam
2. Chev. Prof. George Menachery, Historian, Trhrissur, President
3.Abram Ben Hur, General Secretary, St. Thomas Maha Kudumba Yogam, Archadeacon Centre, Pakalomattom P. O., Kuruvilangad, Kottayam.
4.Jacob Thomas Edassery, Kuravilangad.
5.Prof. Dr. Tarsis Joseph, Kuravilangad.

DOCUMENTS

Affidavit – High Court Hyderabad
Abstract Govt of Andhrapradesh: Guidelines for Assistance to Christian Pilgrimage Order
News paper reports

Dear Philip Mathai,

/thank you for your post. I agree with most of your observations, especially
1. You can understand bible only if you read it humbly to know what God wants to talk to you what you want to know. God will talk to each according to his capacity if you humble before Him
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2. To God all are equal, whether t hey follows any religion or denomination. He will not ask you what your doctrines. He will look in to your heart.
3. Bible is not to be viewed as a book of Science or a Book of History, but only from a theological point of view.

Agrees that there could be some fiction in the book of genesis.
Peter2:3: 5 & 10 describes Act of creation and end of the world which is probably closer to the views of modern science.

*Humanity’s infancy* is a good observation and explanation. But to god his laws are the same for ever. Unchanged as long as the earth and the heaven exists. Jesus explains that many of the Laws of Levi were written by Moses to satisfy the people. So I still doubt whether *My God* would have ordered those killings. Even more surprising to see that David had gone after and destroyed entire enemy communities, with out sparing even the babies.

Also why was it allowed for the Kings to have multiple wives – David had many (not to mention Solomon) where as we cant have more than one ? That is unfair. Reason may be we may not be able to treat them equal. I dont know. There is an Israeli community (Black American community) which practices polygamy and they explain it like this “If you have some thing good would you share it with some one else ? So if you have a husband and you know he is a good man then why wont you let another woman to be in your household. ”

The observation that if a person is born when their parents are in youth is sinful and if one is born when is parents are in old age is sinless, and that sex is sinful
>> I am not saying procreation is sinful nor is sexuality which is the basic requirement for the sustainment of the human race. But only view it being the ORIGINAL SIN, and that your *attittude* makes it wrong – ie. when it is from *desire of flesh*. Not denying that it is gods gift for humanity.
Also I didnt mean parents being old etc. What I meant is *attitude – procreation or pleasure* and ‘John was rebirth of Elijah by the power of spirit and so was Mary’. But Ismail was from flesh as stated in the bible.

*Jesus was Son of MAN. No one in the world could say he is a son of MAN. SON OF MAN is son of God. Not because he is born of Virgin Mary. * – That is a good point. I take that as mine.