Roman Catholic Church in India
The Roman Catholic Church in India and Bhutan is part of the worldwide Catholic Church.
description
The Catholic Church in India is divided into three different rites or liturgical traditions, each of which has its own diocese. These are the Roman rite (Latin), the Syro-Malabar rite (Eastern Syriac) and the Syro-Malankar rite (Western Syriac). The dioceses of the individual rites often overlap in terms of area and only include the Catholics of their own liturgy. All dioceses have been united in the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) since 1944, regardless of rite. At present (2011) there are 30 ore and 135 suffragan dioceses nationwide; together 165 dioceses. Of these, 129 bishoprics belong to the Roman, 28 to the Syro-Malabar and 8 to the Syro-Malankar rite. According to statistics from 2003, there are 14,000 secular priests, 13,000 religious priests and 90,000 nuns in the Catholic Church in India. The number of Christians in India is around 25 million, of which around 18 million are members of the Catholic Church. Of these, around 500,000 belong to the Syro-Malankar rite, 2.5 million to the Syro-Malabar rite and 15 million to the Roman rite.
An Apostolic Nunciature was established in 1881 for the diplomatic representation of the Holy See in India . The first nuncio was Archbishop Antonio Agliardi from 1884 to 1887 . Most recently, Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro represented the Holy See as Apostolic Nuncio in India and Nepal until August 2020.
history
St. Thomas in front of the map of India
Giovanni de Marignolli , Papal Legate in Quilon
The Portuguese landed in India in 1498
St. Francis Xavier baptizes in India
Pre-colonial period
The Catholic Church in India is of apostolic origin. According to the constant local tradition, the apostle Thomas landed in Muziris (Kodungallur), in today's Kerala , in 52 , founded seven Christian communities along the Malabar coast and died a martyr in Mailapur near Madras . From this foundation the church developed in India long before European colonial powers were active there. She followed the East Syrian liturgy. The Indian Church drew its bishops from the Catholic of Seleukia-Ctesiphon in what is now Iraq , from which the Assyrian Church of the East later developed. Despite the fact that the bishops sent from there to India carried the title of Indian metropolitan, they were purely auxiliary bishops for spiritual functions. All other decisions were made by the so-called " archdeacon " who was always a local.
Due to the unfavorable circumstances of the time ( Sassanid Empire in Persia and the spread of Islam ) and the long distance, there was only a very loose contact with the Church of Europe. At the Council of Nicaea (325) a bishop of “Greater India” was also represented, who signed the resolutions. Every now and then pilgrims from Europe visited the tomb of the Apostle Thomas in Mailapur on adventurous journeys. If both Christian groups - Latins and Syrians - met on rare occasions, one saw each other as belonging to the same church. Such a meeting took place, for example, in 883 when Bishop Sighelm of Sherborne in England, on behalf of King Alfred the Great, visited the tomb of the Apostles and the Christians in Mailapur, southern India.
The first Latins
The Italian Franciscan John of Montecorvino landed in Quilon on the Malabar coast in 1291 . He proselytized and looked after the Thomas Christians of the Syrian tradition found there before he crossed India to the east and finally moved to China. His companion, the Dominican Nicolaus von Pistoja, who died in Mailapur, was naturally buried there in the Syrian Church of the Holy Sepulcher of the Apostle Thomas, which is clear evidence of the mutual acceptance that was still prevalent between European and Indian Christians at the time. In a letter from China in 1305 he reaffirmed the grave site of his confrere in the Indian St. Thomas Church and distinguished the conditions there from those he encountered in China, where he encountered hostile "Nestorians".
In 1320 the French Dominican Father Jordanus Catalanus de Severac moved to Asia on papal mandate, where he settled in Quilon to do missionary work and also to serve as pastoral careers for the Christians of the Syrian rite who were already living there. From 1323 baptisms that he performed here are documented. In 1328 he traveled to Avignon and reported to Pope John XXII. about the local Christian community, whereupon he issued the Bull Romanus Pontifex on August 9, 1329 and thus officially brought into being the diocese of Quilon as the first of all Catholic Indian dioceses. On August 21 of the same year, the bull Venerabili Fratri Jordano followed , with which the pontiff appointed Father Jordanus as the first pastor. As a suffragan diocese, Quilon was subordinate to the Latin Archdiocese of Sultaniya in Persia, today's Soltaniyeh , in the Iranian province of Zanjan ; at that time the capital of the Ilkhan dynasty, which was open to Christianity . Bishop Jordanus also wrote a detailed description of India and the conditions it encountered, which we have received under the title “Mirabilia Descripta”. He was stoned by Muslims in Bombay in 1336.
When the missionary and papal legate Giovanni de Marignolli came to Quilon in 1348, he did not meet Bishop Jordanus, but to his astonishment he found a Latin Christian community, which he looked after for a year and four months and whose church he decorated with paintings before he traveled on. In addition, to commemorate his stay there, he erected a marble column crowned by a cross with Indian and Latin inscriptions as well as the papal and his own coat of arms, which is attested by the Dutch clergyman Baldeus in 1662, at that time - over 300 years after its erection - but from was attributed to St. Thomas by local believers. Quilon was the only Latin bishopric in India formally to continue to exist, but it was orphaned and no longer had an official hierarchy. The local Christians were again cared for by priests of the Syrian rite.
Colonial era
In 1498 the Portuguese landed in India under the seafarer Vasco da Gama , began to settle there as the first Europeans of the modern era and built a colonial empire. They met the Christian communities existing here who belonged to the East Syrian liturgy and in which the few Latins from the missionary efforts of the 14th century had also absorbed. These Christians, mostly referred to as Thomas Christians, considered themselves part of the general church and immediately submitted to the Pope in their entirety.
Kodungallur near Ernakulam , in today's Kerala , is considered the arrival point of St. Thomas in India and was for a long time the seat of the metropolitan of the Thomas Christians. They later moved the residence to Udayamperoor (Diamper), eventually to Angamaly . Before the arrival of the Portuguese and at the beginning of their colonial activity, the Indian metropolitans were sent by the Chaldean Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East . This patriarchy had long had a loose connection with Rome. Since Patriarch Mar Johann Shimun Sulaqa , consecrated bishop in St. Peter's Church in Rome in 1553, there has been a formal ecclesiastical union and the particular church has been called the Chaldean Catholic Church .
Initially, the bishops sent to India by the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch were accepted by the Portuguese colonial rulers, the more they were able to establish their own rule there, but the more they were suppressed. As an additional means of pressure, the Thomas Christians were also accused of the heresy of Nestorianism , since they obtained their bishops from the Chaldean Patriarch . At that time, Mar Joseph Sulaqa , the biological brother of Patriarch Johann Shimun Sulaqa, was the Syro-Catholic Metropolitan of Angamaly in India, with papal legitimation from 1556 to 1569 . Cardinal Bernardino Maffei had already given a speech in the consistory of February 20, 1553 on the occasion of the impending award of the patriarchal dignity to Johann Shimun Sulaqua, in which he expressly attested to the so-called "Nestorians" in Seleukia-Ctesiphon and India; they only carry this designation, in reality they are completely orthodox.
Regardless of this, Portugal initiated the Diamper Synod in India, which was never confirmed by Rome and is now classified as the “ Synod of Robbers” . With the help of the constructed accusation of heresy, the subordination of the metropolitan seat of Angamaly as a suffragan to the Latin Archdiocese of Goa resulted in December 1599 . This in turn was under the sovereignty of Portugal; the archbishop was viceroy at the same time and bishops were only appointed there in agreement with the Portuguese crown. The last Archbishop of Angamaly appointed by the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch in India was Mar Abraham († 1597). He was followed by the Latin archbishops Francis Roz SJ († 1624), Stephen Britto († 1641) and Francis Garcia († 1659). Archbishop Roz had moved the seat of the diocese from Angamaly to Cranganore (now Kodungallur). The Latin shepherds were alien to the Chaldean (= East Syrian) liturgy and tried to adapt it to their own Latin rite. The traditional rite there - now called Syro-Malarbarian - was more or less suppressed.
The disputes between the Portuguese missionaries and the Thomas Christians culminated in the oath of the Leaning Cross (Coonan Cross in Fort Cochin ), which resulted in the secession of some of the Thomas Christians from the Catholic Church. However, thanks to the sustained efforts of the papal envoy, Bishop Joseph of S. Maria de Sebastiani, OCD, and the native Thomas Christian Alexander de Campo , who was ordained bishop by him in 1663 , most of the faithful were able to return to the unity of the Catholic Church.
After the death of Bishop Alexander de Campo (1687) there were only Latin dioceses in the Catholic Church in India. Particularly through the efforts of the Jesuits, such as St. Francis Xavier , St. John de Britto and Blessed Rodolfo Acquaviva , the number of newly converted Christians of the Latin rite had begun to exceed that of the Thomas Christians of the East Syrian tradition. The Latin mission was extended to all of India, while the Thomas Christians existed almost exclusively in southern India. The Latin bishops ruled the Catholic Thomas Christians until 1887 mostly through native prelates of the Syrian rite who were not ordained bishops. One of them, Kuriakose Elias Chavara (1805–1871), was beatified in 1986. From 1887 the Thomas Christians were generally removed from the Latin jurisdiction and the Apostolic Vicariates Trichur and Kottayam were created exclusively for them (under Latin titular bishops) , which were converted into the three vicariates Trichur, Ernakulam and Changanacherry in 1896 . That year, for the first time, Syro-Malabar titular bishops came to head the district as Apostolic Vicars. The vicariate of Kottayam, which was dissolved in 1896, was re-established in 1911, but now as the exclusive personal vicariate for the endogamous group of the Knananites among the Catholic Thomas Christians. On St. Thomas's Day, December 21, 1923, Pope Pius XI. the orderly hierarchy of the Catholic Thomas Christians of India was restored after more than 300 years, today's Syro-Malabar Church .
Those Thomas Christians who persisted in the schism after taking the oath on the Leaning Cross in 1653, nevertheless lost their traditional East Syrian rite, as they only found autocephalous bishops from Antioch who were willing to ordain them. They therefore forcibly adopted their West Syrian liturgy . Some of them returned to the Catholic Church in 1930 with their subsequently adopted West Syrian Mass rite, today's Syro-Malankara Catholic Church .
In 1953 the first Indian cardinal was appointed.
Overview of the church provinces
- Diocese of Ajmer
- Bishopric of Allahabad
- Bishopric of Bareilly
- Diocese of Jaipur
- Diocese of Jhansi
- Diocese of Lucknow
- Diocese of Meerut
- Diocese of Udaipur
- Diocese of Varanasi
- Diocese of Belgaum
- Bellary Diocese
- Diocese of Chikmagalur
- Diocese of Gulbarga
- Diocese of Karwar
- Diocese of Mangalore
- Diocese of Mysore
- Shimoga diocese
- Diocese of Udupi
- Bishopric of Balasore
- Bishopric of Berhampur
- Rayagada Diocese
- Diocese of Rourkela
- Sambalpur bishopric
- Bongaigaon bishopric
- Diocese of Dibrugarh
- Diocese of Diphu
- Diocese of Itanagar
- Diocese of Miao
- Diocese of Tezpur
- Asansol bishopric
- Diocese of Bagdogra
- Diocese of Baruipur
- Diocese of Darjeeling
- Jalpaiguri diocese
- Diocese of Krishnagar
- Raiganj diocese
- Diocese of Dindigul
- Diocese of Kottar
- Kuzhithurai diocese
- Palayamkottai diocese
- Sivagangai diocese
- Diocese of Tiruchirappalli
- Diocese of Tuticorin
- Diocese of Daltonganj
- Diocese of Dumka
- Diocese of Gumla
- Diocese of Hazaribag
- Diocese of Jamshedpur
- Diocese of Khunti
- Diocese of Port Blair
- Bishopric of Simdega
- Diocese of Calicut
- Diocese of Cochin
- Diocese of Kannur
- Diocese of Kottapuram
- Sultanpet Diocese
- Diocese of Vijayapuram
See also
literature
- Bertold Spuler : "Handbuch der Orientalistik", 1st section, 8, volume, 2nd section "Religious history of the Orient in the time of world religions", 1961; Scan from the source
Web links
- Entry about the Catholic Church in India on catholic-hierarchy.org (English)
- Website of the Indian Bishops' Conference CBCI (English)
- CBCI Newsletter (English)
- Detailed treatise on Indian church history (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Official website of the Indian Bishops' Conference, with the diocese figures from 2011 ( Memento of the original from April 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Website Christianity in India today
- ↑ The 7 early communities of St. Thomas on the Malabar Coast
- ↑ On the Persian-Indian Bishop John at the Council of Nicaea
- ↑ source to visit Bishop Sighelms. Medleycott: India and the Apostle Thomas (2005), 82
- ↑ On the funeral of the Franciscan Nicolaus von Pistoja in the Syrian St. Thomas Church in Mailapur
- ^ Letter from Johannes de Montecorvino, 1305
- ↑ Website of the Dominicans on Father Jordanus Catalanus and his mission to India (in English) ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ On the foundation of the diocese of Quilon, 1329 ( Memento of May 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ↑ Report of the missionary Giovanni de Marignolli about his visit to Quilon in 1348
- ↑ On the memorial column of the papal legate Giovanni de Marignolli, from 1348
- ↑ Udayamperoor (Diamper) in the English Wikipedia
- ↑ Source on Patriarch John Sulaqa and his brother Archbishop Joseph Sulaqa in India
- ↑ Source of Cardinal Maffei's speech on the Nestorians (Note No. 18)
- ↑ On Joseph of S. Maria de Sebastiani, OCD (1st person) ( Memento from November 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
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