Knananites

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The Knananites or Knanaya Christians are a strictly endogamous group within the Thomas Christians in South India and the Diaspora .

history

Around 350 72 families of Chaldean Jewish Christians moved with their leader, the wealthy merchant Thomas von Kinayi (also Thomas von Kana or Thomas von Kynai), a bishop named Uraha Mar Yousef and several clerics from their Persian homeland to the Pepper Coast in southern India. Kynai or Kana was about 70 km south of today's Baghdad . Through her and her clergy, who followed the East Syrian (Chaldean) rite, the Thomas Christians came into contact with the Assyrian Church of the East during their journey . Cheraman Perumal, the ruler of Malabar , welcomed the immigrants in a friendly manner and granted them the right to settle in Kodungallur . The immigrants were later given princely privileges that were kept on copper plates.

At the Pepper Coast, today's Kerala , lived at that time already stemming from apostolic times, in the missionary activities of the apostle Thomas declining Thomas Christians . They also had strong Jewish-Christian traditions, as the apostle had initially proselytized among his compatriots who were resident there as spice dealers. However, the Jewish Christians quickly mingled with new Christians from the local population. The immigrants under Thomas von Cana, so-called Southernists or Knananites, were, however, strongly endogamous. Although they followed the same Eastern Syrian liturgy as the Indian Thomas Christians, they cut themselves off from them as an ethnic-religious group. They were only allowed to marry one another, had their own parishes and mostly only socialized with their own kind.

So it remained under the Portuguese colonial rule and with the later split of the entire Thomas Christians into a larger Catholic and a smaller autocephalous part. In both camps the Knananites lived separately and endogamously again. The Catholic Knananites were brought together on August 29, 1911 by Pope Pius X by virtue of the Apostolic Constitution In universi christiani to form the Apostolic Vicariate Kottayam, which was established exclusively for them. On December 21, 1923, Pope Pius XI. this Vicariate through the Apostolic Constitution Romani Pontifices to a regular diocese ( eparchy ). Pope Benedict XVI elevated it to an archparchy on May 12, 2005.

Todays situation

There are about 300,000 Knananite Christians in India today; 200,000 belong to the Syro-Malabar Church , 100,000 to the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church . In both churches the Knananites form a strictly endogamous ethnic group with their own bishops and their own clergy. This endogamy goes so far that a Syro-Malabar Knananite can marry an Orthodox Knananite, but never a non-Knananite member of his own Syro-Malabar Church. In order to keep their ethnic group pure, the Knanatites do not do missionary work or evangelize - although this actually contradicts the Christian missionary mandate. It is also not possible to become a member of your community by converting or joining. However, endogamy is now understood as caste conceit in the community and is therefore avoided, although economically well-off members continue to follow this practice in order to secure their wealth for a narrow circle.

On August 29, 1911 , Pope Pius X established the Apostolic Vicariate of Kottayam exclusively for the Catholic Knananites . On December 21, 1923, Pius XI changed it . under Bishop Alexander Chulaparambil (1877-1951) to a regular diocese (eparchy), Benedict XVI. elevated it to an archparchy in 2005.

The Syrian Orthodox Knananite Diocese in Chingavanam was established in 1910 and made an archbishopric in 2007 by Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I. Iwas . Today (2008) it has an archbishop, Kyriakose Mar Sevarios, and three bishops, 117 priests and 103 parishes, 24 of them external.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website on the history of the Kottayam Archeparchy
  2. On the history of the Thomas Christians and their Jewish roots on the Malabar coast