March 29, 2009
I would like to put the following views for readers to ponder upon:
1. The Mar Thoma Church claims that St. Thomas was its founder and therefore the Mar Thoma Church is apostlic in origin. So, there must have existed an apostolic church in Kerala from AD52 itself. Why then, did we have to go to Syria to get our bishops ordained?
2. If God used poor fisher folk to form the body of Christ on earth, will he change his strategy when he sent his apostle to India. However, the the history of the origin of the church in Kerala seem to suggest that God changed his methology in that members of brahmanical families were the first converts of St. Thomas and it is through them that the church in Kerala was formed.
3. There is no evidence in biblical or reformation history that God has used a single family for the furtherance of his kingdom on earth. Yet it seems that God had a preference when he came to Kerala in that the bishops who were "crowned" in the Mar Thoma Church have their roots back to brahmanical families or to some renowned family in Kerala. Is God a respecter of faces?
4. The root of all evil in India is the caste system, which is one of the most demonic systems conceived by the human mind. This is the one of the root problems of the Indian society. Yet, it seems to me that we are unable to fight this system as the roots of the Syrian christian churches in Kerala seem to have their roots in brahmanical tradition. It is my hypothesis that in a very systemic way there seems to be a link of these families influence to the leadership of the Syrian christian churches in Kerala. If this hypothesis is correct, then the caste system continues to be perpetuated and so thereby render the church ineffective in combating this evil that plagues this land.
5. It seems to me that there has been a "political maneuvering" that has taken place in the reformation in the Mar Thoma Church, in that most of the bishops seem to come from one particular family or from renowned families in the Thiruvalla-Kozhencherry belt.
Therefore, it is my contention that an objective review or research into the history of the Kerala Church needs to be undertaken to see if there is more to the story than meets the eye.
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2 comments:
i did read watevr u hav said abt d Marthoma church, bt can u tell me hw 2 go abt this reformation that u are talking abt? this is a friendly question....
1. The Mar Thoma Church claims that St. Thomas was its founder and therefore the Mar Thoma Church is apostlic in origin. So, there must have existed an apostolic church in Kerala from AD52 itself. Why then, did we have to go to Syria to get our bishops ordained?
The Mar Thoma church's claim that St. Thomas is its founder is factually wrong. The real founders are Fr. Abraham Malpan and the British protestant missionaries. There was and still is Apostolic church in Kerala from AD 52. When Fr. Malpan fell under the influence of the British missionaries and started his so called Reformation, he was ex-communicated from the Apostolic church founded by St. Thomas. In order to claim the new church has Apostolic succession, Fr. Malpan had to send his nephew to Syria to get ordained by the Bishop and thereby claim Apostolic succession. Now here is the biggest goof-up. Fr. Malpan's nephew obviously would not have told the Bishop in Syria about his conversion to Protestant ideology. After getting ordained with falsified documents the church would then continue their claim to Apostolic succession. In plan English it is called stabbing in the back. Just because the name of the church is Mar thoma and its bishops have the word 'Mar' in their name doesn't make it Apostolic. If it is truly Apostolic, it should share the traditional faith of all the Apostolic churches around the World. None of the Apostolic churches around the world would accept Protestant ideologies like the Mar thoma church.
Mar thoma church is just another Protestant church among 40,000 protesant churches. Its alliance is with CSI, CNI and the Anglican church whose head is Queen Elizabeth, whom to my knowledge has no Apostolic succession.
Mar thoma church claims to be following the true teachings of St. Thomas. Then why did Fr. Malpan not include the Gospel of St.Thomas when he "translated" the Bible to Malayalam? Fr. Malpan is no Apostle nor he was a Saint. He only started a revolt under the influence of a British and indeed he and his Pakalomattom family benefited a lot from it.
To call Mar thoma church as Apostolic is to call even St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India as Apostolic and every other fractions that may occur in future(tradition of Protestant churches) as Apostolic.
Having said all this, I would like to say that I like the Social welfare activities that Mar thoma church is involved in and some of the Maramon convention songs. I like your choir but please stop singing Malayalam songs with British accent. Its plan revolting! You need some reformation there :)
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