Formation of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church

The formation of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC) — also called the Indian Orthodox Church — stands as one of the most painful chapters in the two-thousand-year history of the Thomas Christian community of Kerala. Unlike the Marthoma schism of the nineteenth century, which was driven by Protestant theological infection and the deliberate abandonment of Orthodox faith, the MOSC schism is of a fundamentally different nature. It is a jurisdictional and canonical rupture — a wounding within the body of Orthodoxy itself — over the question of how the ancient Malankara Church relates to its canonical mother, the Apostolic See of Antioch.

The MOSC retained the apostolic faith in its fullness: the Holy Qurbono with all its ancient commemorations, the veneration of the Theotokos and the saints, the prayers for the faithful departed, the sacramental theology and the miaphysite Christology of the Syriac Orthodox Fathers. In this the MOSC faithful are, in every theological sense, our brothers and sisters in the ancient faith. The dispute is not over what we believe but over who has the canonical authority to govern the Church in India — the Patriarch of Antioch alone, or a Catholicos acting independently of him.

Yet to say this is a "merely canonical" dispute is to underestimate the gravity of the matter. In Orthodox ecclesiology, canonical order is not a bureaucratic technicality but an expression of the Church's very nature as the Body of Christ. The bonds of canonical communion are not administrative conveniences but spiritual realities through which the apostolic faith is transmitted, the sacraments are validly celebrated, and the faithful are authentically shepherded toward salvation. A rupture in canonical communion is therefore always a rupture in the Body of Christ — and must be treated with the utmost theological seriousness.

To understand the MOSC schism, one must begin where canonical order in Malankara was definitively established: the Mulamthuruthy Synod of 1876. Presided over by His Holiness Patriarch Ignatius Peter IV, the 109th Patriarch of Antioch, this patriarchal synod formally codified the constitutional relationship between the Malankara Church and the Apostolic See of Antioch. The Mulamthuruthy Padiyola — signed by over 100 parishes, 130 priests, and 144 lay representatives — established beyond canonical ambiguity the following foundational principles:

• The Patriarch of Antioch is the supreme canonical and spiritual head of the Malankara Church.
• The Metropolitan of Malankara exercises authority as the Patriarch's delegate and representative in India — not as an autocephalous prelate.
• The Malankara Association, comprising clergy and laity, has a legitimate role in administrative governance but cannot supersede or replace episcopal and patriarchal authority in matters of faith and holy orders.
• Any canonical act of major significance — including episcopal consecrations — requires patriarchal knowledge, consent, and ultimately derives its legitimacy from the Patriarch's apostolic authority.

These were not the opinions of one party. They were the formally ratified decisions of a patriarchal synod — the highest ordinary canonical authority within the Syriac Orthodox system. The Mulamthuruthy Padiyola became the constitutional charter of the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church. All subsequent canonical disputes in Malankara history — including the MOSC schism — must be measured against this foundational document.

In the decades following the Mulamthuruthy Synod, the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church experienced a period of growth and consolidation. New parishes were established, the liturgical life flourished, and the faithful maintained their communion with the Patriarchate of Antioch through the canonical Metropolitan. However, within this growing community, certain voices began to advocate for a restructuring of the Malankara Church's relationship with Antioch.

The arguments advanced by the autonomist faction were not without a certain practical logic. The Patriarchate of Antioch was located thousands of miles away, in a region subject to the pressures of Ottoman rule and later regional instability. Communication between Malankara and Antioch was slow and often difficult. The growing Christian community in Kerala, with its increasing number of parishes, dioceses, and faithful, required responsive, resident leadership. Why, the autonomists argued, should the governance of such a large and ancient community be ultimately dependent upon the distant See of Antioch?

From a Syriac Orthodox canonical perspective, however, these practical arguments — however understandable in human terms — cannot override the theological principle that the Church's canonical structure is not a matter of administrative convenience but of apostolic order. The distance between Malankara and Antioch had existed for centuries without diminishing the canonical bond. The ancient Church fathers never suggested that geographical remoteness was sufficient grounds for unilateral autocephaly. Autocephaly in the Orthodox tradition is granted — not seized. It arises from a mutual act of canonical recognition, not from a unilateral declaration of independence.

The Kandanad Faction and Its Leadership

By the early twentieth century, the autonomist movement had coalesced around a significant group of clergy and laity, particularly associated with the Kandanad region. Key figures in this movement included those who would later be central to the events of 1912. They began to argue not merely for greater administrative autonomy — which the Patriarch might have been willing to discuss — but for the establishment of a Catholicos of the East in India: a resident supreme head who would, in their understanding, exercise authority independent of or coordinate with the Patriarch.

The concept of a Catholicos within the Syriac Orthodox tradition is not inherently problematic. Within the canonical structure of the Church, a Catholicos is a high-ranking prelate who oversees a large region, but crucially — in the Syriac Orthodox understanding — always as a delegate of and in subordination to the Patriarch. There had been Catholicoi within the Syriac Orthodox world before, all of whom exercised their authority within the framework of patriarchal communion and oversight. What the autonomists sought, however, was something categorically different: a Catholicos whose authority would make him effectively independent of the Patriarch — an autocephalous head in all but name.

The year 1912 marks the most consequential and most disputed event in twentieth-century Malankara Church history. In that year, during the visit of Patriarch Ignatius Abdul Masih II to India, the Malankara Association — under the leadership of the autonomist faction — obtained the consecration of Murimattath Ivanios as Baselios Paulose I, the Catholicos of the East.

At first glance, this appears straightforward: the Patriarch himself performed the consecration, so it must be canonical. But the reality, as examined through the lens of Syriac Orthodox canonical scholarship, is far more complex — and from the Jacobite perspective, deeply problematic.

The Circumstances Surrounding the Patriarch's Decision

Patriarch Ignatius Abdul Masih II visited India in 1912 at a time when the Patriarchate of Antioch was itself under severe pressure — the declining years of the Ottoman Empire were catastrophic for the Syriac Christian communities of the Middle East, and the Patriarch was in a position of great vulnerability, both politically and financially. The autonomist faction in Malankara — well-organized, well-resourced, and in control of significant church properties — was able to present the Patriarch with a situation in which consent to the Catholicos consecration appeared the path of least resistance.

Jacobite canonical scholars and historians have consistently maintained that the Patriarch's consent to this consecration was obtained under circumstances that compromised its full canonical integrity. The Patriarch did not arrive in Malankara with a settled intention to establish an independent Catholicos. The autonomist faction engineered the situation — through control of hospitality, resources, and access — such that the Patriarch found himself in a position where he felt unable to refuse. This is not to question the Patriarch's personal holiness or canonical authority, but to note that canonical acts performed under duress or manipulation carry a different weight than those performed in complete freedom.

The Critical Canonical Question: What Kind of Catholicos?

Even granting the consecration its full canonical validity, the dispute immediately arose over the nature of the office thus created. The Jacobite position — grounded in Syriac Orthodox canonical tradition — is clear and unambiguous: a Catholicos within the Syriac Orthodox system is always a delegate of the Patriarch, exercising delegated authority within a defined region, accountable to the Patriarch, and unable to act in fundamental canonical matters without patriarchal oversight.

This understanding is not a post-hoc construction by the Jacobite party. It reflects the entire canonical history of the Catholicate within the Syriac Orthodox tradition. The ancient Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (later of the Church of the East) and the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church were formed under very different historical circumstances — involving formal grants of autocephaly from the Patriarchate. No such formal grant of autocephaly was made to Malankara in 1912. The consecration was performed, but the nature and limits of the office were not formally defined in a way that satisfied canonical requirements for autocephaly.

The autonomist party, however, immediately interpreted the consecration as establishing a fully independent head of the Malankara Church — one who would govern India without reference to the Patriarch's authority. They argued that the Malankara Association, as the supreme governing body of the Indian Church, had effectively acquired through the Catholicos an independence that superseded the arrangements of the Mulamthuruthy Padiyola of 1876.

Vattasseril Geevarghese Dionysius: The Man at the Centre

Geevarghese Dionysius of Vattasseril — subsequently consecrated as Baselios Geevarghese I — was by all historical accounts a man of genuine personal holiness, pastoral devotion, and deep commitment to the spiritual welfare of the Malankara faithful. He is venerated today by the MOSC as a saint. His personal qualities are not in dispute.

What the Jacobite canonical perspective must assess, however, is not the personal holiness of the individual but the canonical legitimacy of the institutional act. History records many instances of personally holy men who, through ambition, error, or the manipulation of those around them, found themselves at the centre of schismatic movements that caused lasting harm to the Body of Christ. Personal sanctity does not by itself constitute canonical legitimacy. The Patriarch of Antioch is the proper judge of canonical matters within his jurisdiction — not the individual bishop, however holy — and the Patriarch's successors, examining the events of 1912 in their full context, consistently maintained that the Catholicos of Malankara must remain within the framework of patriarchal authority and communion.

If 1912 planted the seed of jurisdictional dispute, the year 1934 watered it into a full and formal separation. In that year, the autonomist-controlled Malankara Association adopted a formal Constitution of the Malankara Church — a document that, from the Jacobite canonical perspective, constitutes one of the most audacious unilateral acts in the history of Indian Christianity.

The 1934 Constitution vested supreme governing authority in the Malankara Association, presided over by the Catholicos, as an independent body — making no provision for patriarchal oversight, confirmation, or canonical relationship with the Apostolic See of Antioch. It effectively declared the Malankara Church to be self-governing, self-sustaining, and self-perpetuating — canonically autonomous in everything but formal name.

Why This Constitution Is Canonically Invalid

In Syriac Orthodox canonical tradition, a regional church cannot adopt a constitution that severs or supersedes its relationship with the patriarchal authority through which it derives its canonical existence. The Malankara Church's very being as a canonical entity flowed from its communion with the Patriarch of Antioch — a communion formally and explicitly codified at Mulamthuruthy in 1876. For the Malankara Association — a body of clergy and laity — to adopt a constitution overriding this foundational patriarchal relationship was canonically equivalent to a regional parliament declaring independence from the very state whose laws gave it its authority to exist.

The analogy is precise: the Malankara Association was created at Mulamthuruthy under patriarchal authority and within the framework of that authority. Its powers of administration were delegated powers — granted by the canonical structure that flowed from the Patriarch. For this body to then declare itself supreme over the Patriarch is a logical and canonical impossibility. The creature cannot delegitimize its creator. The river cannot cut itself off from its source and declare itself an ocean.

The Patriarchate's Response

The Patriarchate of Antioch did not recognize the 1934 Constitution as a valid canonical instrument. Successive Patriarchs maintained that the Catholicos of Malankara was a delegate of the Patriarch, not an independent head, and that the adoption of the Constitution without patriarchal consultation or approval was an irregular and canonically unacceptable act. The Jacobite faithful — those who maintained loyalty to the Patriarch — rejected the Constitution and continued to govern themselves according to the Mulamthuruthy Padiyola of 1876.

Thus by 1934, the Malankara Syrian Church had effectively split into two communities worshipping in the same ancient tradition, using the same Syriac liturgy, confessing the same faith — but divided by the foundational question of canonical authority. The Jacobite Syrian Christian Church maintained communion with and loyalty to the Patriarch of Antioch. The autonomist party — which would consolidate as the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church — proclaimed its independence under the Catholicos and the 1934 Constitution.

The canonical crisis deepened significantly in 1964 with the consecration of Baselios Augen I (also known as Baselios Geevarghese II) as Catholicos — a consecration performed without the consent, knowledge, or blessing of the Patriarch of Antioch. This was, from the Jacobite canonical standpoint, a decisive act of schism: the consecration of a bishop in the Syriac Orthodox tradition without patriarchal sanction is canonically invalid and constitutes the very definition of schismatic episcopal ordination.

The Patriarch of Antioch — His Holiness Ignatius Yaqub III — declared the consecration of 1964 irregular and invalid. The Jacobite faithful, following their canonical head, accepted this declaration as binding. The MOSC party, having already rejected patriarchal authority in the 1934 Constitution, dismissed the Patriarch's declaration and proceeded to consecrate and recognize subsequent Catholicoi without reference to Antioch.

The Cascading Problem of Invalid Consecrations

From the Syriac Orthodox canonical perspective, this created a serious and ongoing problem regarding the validity of episcopal orders within the MOSC. If the 1964 consecration was invalid — as the Patriarch declared — then all subsequent consecrations performed by or through Baselios Augen I and his successors carry that invalidity forward in the chain of episcopal ordination. This is not a trivial concern. In Orthodox ecclesiology, the validity of the Eucharist, the sacraments, and the entire sacramental life of the community depends upon a validly consecrated episcopate in authentic apostolic succession and canonical communion.

Jacobite canonical scholars are careful to note that this judgment is made with sorrow, not triumph. The faithful of the MOSC celebrate the same liturgy, confess the same faith, and are our brothers and sisters in Christ. But the integrity of canonical order demands that these questions be stated clearly, however painful they may be to hear.

The jurisdictional dispute between the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church was not confined to the realm of theology and canon law. It played out in the civil courts of Kerala and ultimately before the Supreme Court of India in some of the longest-running and most complex religious property litigation in Indian legal history. The two communities contested ownership of hundreds of parishes, church buildings, cemeteries, and institutional properties across Kerala.

The Foundational Legal Question

The central legal question before the courts mirrored the central canonical question: What is the constitutional structure of the Malankara Church as agreed upon by its members? Is it a church governed by the Patriarch of Antioch as supreme head, or a church governed by the Malankara Association under the Catholicos as an independent body?

Indian courts, applying principles of trust law and religious freedom, were required to examine the historical documents — primarily the Mulamthuruthy Padiyola of 1876 and the 1934 Constitution — to determine which party lawfully represented the constitutional traditions of the Malankara Church and therefore had rightful claim to its properties.

The 1958 Judicial Commissioner's Court Ruling

Early court decisions gave mixed results, with different courts at different levels reaching varying conclusions. The legal proceedings were extraordinarily complex, involving the examination of historical documents in Malayalam, Syriac, and English, the testimony of canonical experts, and the application of Indian trust law to the governance structures of an ancient Eastern church — a methodological challenge of considerable difficulty.

The Landmark Supreme Court Judgment of 1958: Moran Mar Baselios Case

In the Moran Mar Baselios v. Most Rev. Mar Poulose Athanasius case, the Supreme Court of India examined the constitutional structure of the Malankara Church and the validity of the Catholicos. While the court's judgment was nuanced and not a complete vindication of either party's position, it recognized the significance of the Mulamthuruthy Padiyola as a foundational constitutional document and the complex historical relationship between Malankara and the Patriarchate of Antioch.

The Decisive Supreme Court Judgment of 1995

The most consequential judicial pronouncement came in 1995, when a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India delivered its landmark judgment in the case Suo Motu Writ Petition — The Patriarch of Antioch and All the East v. S.Y. Mathew. This was a watershed moment in the legal history of Indian Christianity.

The Supreme Court, after exhaustive examination of the historical documents, the canonical traditions, and the legal evidence, ruled substantially in favour of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church and the Patriarch of Antioch's position. The court held that the constitutional structure of the Malankara Church, as established by the Mulamthuruthy Padiyola of 1876, made the Patriarch of Antioch the supreme head of the Malankara Church, and that the 1934 Constitution — adopted unilaterally without patriarchal sanction — could not override or replace the foundational arrangements of 1876.

The judgment directed that parishes which had not individually adopted the 1934 Constitution by a majority decision of their own members were to be treated as belonging to the Patriarchal (Jacobite) party. This ruling resulted in the transfer of numerous parishes and church properties to the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church — a process that was implemented gradually and with considerable local controversy and resistance.

The 2017 Supreme Court Judgment: Reaffirmation

The legal battles did not end with 1995. The MOSC party continued to contest the implementation of the judgment, and further litigation followed over the subsequent decades. In 2017, the Supreme Court once again reaffirmed the essential holdings of the 1995 judgment, upholding the canonical and constitutional primacy of the Patriarch of Antioch over the Malankara Church and directing the transfer of properties accordingly.

From the Jacobite perspective, these Supreme Court judgments represent the civil law's recognition of what canonical law had always maintained: the Mulamthuruthy Padiyola of 1876 is the foundational constitutional document of the Malankara Syrian Church, and the Patriarch of Antioch's authority over Malankara is not a foreign imposition but the freely chosen and formally covenanted canonical structure of the community itself.

The Limits of Civil Law in Church Disputes

It must be acknowledged, with the honesty that a Syriac Orthodox scholar owes to truth, that civil court judgments — however welcome when they vindicate canonical order — cannot resolve the underlying theological and canonical questions. Courts apply the law of the state, not the law of the Church. They can determine property rights and institutional recognition. They cannot determine the validity of sacraments, the authenticity of apostolic succession, or the ultimate canonical standing of bishops and their communities before God. These belong to the Church's own canonical courts — and ultimately to the judgment of the Holy Spirit working through the Church's conciliar processes.

Throughout the twentieth century, sincere efforts were made at various points to reunite the Jacobite and MOSC communities. These efforts, while ultimately unsuccessful in producing lasting reunion, testify to the awareness — on both sides — that the division was a wound requiring healing and that the shared faith, liturgy, and heritage of the two communities demanded a restoration of unity.

The Coonan Cross Spirit: A Common Inheritance

Both the Jacobite and MOSC communities share the memory of the great Coonan Cross Oath of 1653 — the moment when the Thomas Christians of Malankara, gathered at Mattancherry, swore upon the cross that they would not submit to Latin (Roman Catholic) authority. That oath of resistance to foreign ecclesiastical domination is part of the common consciousness of all Syriac Christians in Kerala. It is a poignant irony that communities sharing that heritage of resistance to external authority should themselves be divided over questions of authority — and a reminder that the Holy Spirit calls both communities toward the reconciliation that their shared history demands.

The 1958 Reunion Attempt

A significant reunion attempt occurred in the period surrounding 1958, when dialogue between the two parties offered some hope of reconciliation. These negotiations broke down, however, over the central unresolved question: the canonical status of the Catholicos and his relationship to the Patriarch of Antioch. The MOSC was unwilling to accept a Catholicos who was explicitly subordinate to the Patriarch; the Jacobite party and the Patriarch were unwilling to recognize a Catholicos whose independence from Antioch was formally established.

The 1990 Agreement and Its Collapse

Perhaps the most promising and ultimately most heartbreaking of the reunion attempts was the Agreement of 1990, negotiated between the leadership of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, the MOSC, and involving the Patriarchate of Antioch. This agreement outlined a framework for reunion under which both the Patriarch and the Catholicos would have defined roles within a reunited Malankara Church.

For a brief period, there was genuine hope that the long division might be healed. Parishes in both communities prayed for reunion, and the faithful looked to their leaders with expectation. But the agreement collapsed before implementation, undermined by competing interpretations of its terms, the opposition of factions within both communities who preferred the status quo, and unresolved canonical ambiguities about the precise relationship between the reunited Church and the Patriarch of Antioch.

Why Reunion Remains Elusive: The Canonical Impasse

The persistent failure of reunion attempts reflects the depth of the canonical impasse. For the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church and the Patriarchate of Antioch, reunion is possible only if the MOSC accepts that the Catholicos of Malankara is canonically subordinate to the Patriarch of Antioch — as was established at Mulamthuruthy and as the Syriac Orthodox canonical tradition demands. For the MOSC, acceptance of this condition would mean abandoning the foundational principle upon which their independent identity has been built for over a century.

This is not a negotiating impasse that can be resolved through diplomatic compromise, goodwill, or theological creativity. It is a canonical question that admits of only one answer according to the principles of Syriac Orthodox ecclesiology — and both sides know it. Reunion, when it comes, must come through the genuine canonical regularization of the Malankara Church under the Patriarch of Antioch — not through a formula that papering over the canonical disorder in the name of practical unity.

Let us now state, systematically and comprehensively, the canonical arguments of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church regarding the MOSC schism. These are not partisan assertions but positions grounded in the canonical traditions of the ancient Syriac Orthodox Church and the formal agreements by which the Malankara community has governed itself.

Argument 1: The Mulamthuruthy Padiyola Is the Constitutional Charter

The Mulamthuruthy Padiyola of 1876 is the canonical and constitutional foundation of the Malankara Syrian Church in its modern organized form. It was produced by a patriarchal synod — the highest ordinary canonical authority — and signed by the overwhelming majority of the Malankara faithful. No subsequent document adopted by a regional assembly of clergy and laity, however numerous, can override or supersede the decisions of a patriarchal synod. The 1934 Constitution is therefore canonically invalid as an attempt to supersede the Mulamthuruthy arrangements without patriarchal sanction.

Argument 2: Autocephaly Cannot Be Self-Declared

In the Syriac Orthodox tradition — as in all ancient Eastern traditions — autocephaly is a status granted by the appropriate canonical authority, not assumed unilaterally. For Malankara to become autocephalous or for the Catholicos to become fully independent of the Patriarch, the Patriarch of Antioch himself would need to formally grant that status through a proper canonical act recognized by the entire Syriac Orthodox Church. No such act has been performed. The 1912 consecration was an act of the Patriarch within the existing canonical framework — it was not, and could not by itself be, a grant of autocephaly.

Argument 3: The Malankara Association Cannot Override Patriarchal Authority

The Malankara Association is a body created within and subject to the canonical structure of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Its authority is administrative and consultative — not jurisdictional over matters of faith, holy orders, or canonical structure. For the Association to adopt a Constitution claiming supreme governing authority over the Malankara Church and establishing the Catholicos as independent of the Patriarch is to act ultra vires — beyond the authority that the canonical order has ever given to it. A body constituted by the Church cannot dissolve or supersede the Church's constitutional foundations.

Argument 4: Subsequent Catholicoi Were Consecrated Without Patriarchal Sanction

Beginning with the 1964 consecration of Baselios Augen I, the MOSC has consecrated Catholicoi without the sanction, consent, or recognition of the Patriarch of Antioch. In Syriac Orthodox canonical tradition, episcopal consecration requires patriarchal involvement and approval — particularly for the senior episcopal office of a Catholicos. Consecrations performed without such approval are irregular and are declared invalid by the Patriarchate. The chain of episcopal succession within the MOSC is therefore, from a Jacobite canonical standpoint, one that has been broken at the point of patriarchal non-sanction.

Argument 5: The Supreme Court Has Vindicated the Canonical Position

The judgments of the Supreme Court of India in 1995 and 2017, while civil rather than canonical pronouncements, have recognized the substance of the Jacobite canonical argument: that the Mulamthuruthy Padiyola of 1876 is the foundational constitutional document of the Malankara Church and that it establishes the Patriarch of Antioch as the supreme head. While civil law and canon law operate in different domains, the court's findings provide historical and legal corroboration for the canonical position the Jacobite Church has maintained throughout.

In the interest of scholarly integrity — which a Syriac Orthodox historian must honour even when examining those with whom his church is in dispute — it is proper to state the MOSC's canonical arguments fairly, even before subjecting them to critique.

The MOSC argues that the ancient Malankara Church always possessed a degree of effective autonomy, given its geographical distance from Antioch and its apostolic foundation through St. Thomas independent of the Antiochene hierarchy. They contend that the 1912 consecration by the Patriarch himself legitimately established the Catholicate, and that the subsequent development of the 1934 Constitution represents the organic self-governance of a mature local church — consistent with the conciliar principles of Oriental Orthodoxy.

The MOSC further argues that the Malankara Association's role as the supreme governing body reflects the ancient conciliar principles of the Eastern Church, in which laity and clergy together with bishops govern the local church — not a distant Patriarch acting unilaterally. They note that their church is recognized by other Oriental Orthodox churches, including the Coptic, Ethiopian, and Armenian churches, as a legitimate autocephalous member of the Oriental Orthodox communion.

These are not frivolous arguments. They reflect genuine theological convictions and a sincere reading of history. The Jacobite canonical response, however, is that: (a) the ancient practical autonomy of Malankara was always de facto, never de jure — it arose from circumstances, not from a canonical grant; (b) the 1912 consecration was within the existing canonical framework, not a grant of autocephaly; (c) conciliarity does not empower lay-clergy assemblies to override patriarchal authority — it operates within the canonical hierarchy, not above it; and (d) recognition by other Oriental Orthodox churches, while significant, cannot substitute for the canonical act of the Patriarch whose jurisdiction over Malankara was formally established.

As a Syriac Orthodox believer contemplating this painful history, the dominant emotion is not triumph but grief. The division between the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is a wound in the Body of Christ — a wound that has lasted over a century, that has caused immeasurable suffering to thousands of faithful families torn between communities, that has drained the energy of the Church in court battles that should have been spent in mission and prayer, and that has given scandal to the world by presenting to it the spectacle of Christians fighting over church properties while the Gospel awaits proclamation.

The faithful of the MOSC are not our enemies. They are our brothers and sisters in St. Thomas, in the ancient Syriac faith, in the Holy Qurbono. They pray in the same sacred tongue, venerate the same saints, and confess the same Lord. The canonical dispute between our communities is real and serious — but it is a family dispute, the most painful kind, between those who share the same blood of apostolic faith.

The path to reunion is clear from the Jacobite canonical perspective, even if it is difficult: the Catholicos of Malankara must be canonically regularized within the framework of the Patriarchate of Antioch, as was established at Mulamthuruthy and as the Syriac Orthodox canonical tradition demands. This need not mean the elimination of the Catholicate — indeed, a properly constituted Catholicos exercising delegated authority under the Patriarch could be a positive development for the entire Malankara community. But it must mean the clear, formal, and unambiguous acknowledgment that the Patriarch of Antioch is the canonical head of the Malankara Church — as the Apostle Thomas's flock in India has covenanted since the formal regularization of 1876.

Until that day comes — and every faithful Jacobite prays fervently that it will — the Church continues to hold open the arms of canonical communion, to maintain the ancient Antiochene faith intact, and to trust that the Holy Spirit who has preserved this church through fifteen centuries of trial will also bring healing to the wounds of the twentieth century. The Patriarch of Antioch remains, as the Mulamthuruthy Padiyola declared, the shepherd of Malankara — and his door has never been closed to those who wish to return to full canonical communion.

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" — Psalm 133:1