Synod of Diamper
The Synod of Diamper was convened in 1599 by the Catholic Archbishop Menezes in Udayampur , Diamper in what is now the Indian state of Kerala . Resolutions were passed on it to fully classify the Thomas Christians , who have lived in southern India since apostolic times, under the Latin rite of the Catholic Church . The synod or its decisions were never confirmed by Rome and it is considered the “robber synod”.
prehistory
When the Portuguese landed in southern India on May 20, 1498, they encountered a large church of native Christians of the East Syrian rite , founded by the Apostle Thomas , which had existed there for centuries. These Christians received their metropolitans and bishops from the Catholic of Seleukia-Ctesiphon in what is now Iraq , from which the Assyrian Church of the East later developed. That patriarchate 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. The Portuguese colonial authorities wanted both the long-established Thomas Christians and the newly converted Latin Catholics to be subordinate to their own Portuguese bishops of the Latin rite . They rejected a dual jurisdiction mainly for political reasons, partly also for religious reasons. 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, served as a Syro-Catholic metropolitan 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, in December 1599 the subordination of the metropolitan seat of the Thomas Christians (at that time in Angamaly ) as a suffragan under the Latin Archdiocese of Goa . This in turn was entirely 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 metropolitan appointed by the Chaldean Patriarch in India was Archbishop Mar Abraham of Angamaly. The Portuguese subsequently prevented the arrival of bishops from the Assyrian Church of the East and after the death of Metropolitan Mar Abraham in 1597, they increased the pressure on the Thomas Christians, which culminated in 1599 with the resolutions of the Synod of Diamper.
The synod and its resolutions
The synod took place from June 20-26, 1599, in the Church of All Saints at Udayamperoor, under the chairmanship of Archbishop Dom Alexis Menezez of Goa.
It passed 200 resolutions which u. a. contained the following points:
- Abolition of all customs that indicated Hindu influences (vegetarianism, interviewing astrologers, participating in Hindu festivals, etc.)
- Introduction of celibacy
- Dissolution of all contacts with the Patriarch of Babylon
- Forsake all doctrines that the new Archbishop Menezes of Goa considered heretical
- Deliver all books of the old church to the archbishop for correction or burning
- Dismissal of all bishops who have not been confirmed by Archbishop Menezes
- Recognition of the Pope as the highest authority of the Christian Church
- Recognition of the Archbishop of Goa as the highest authority in India
In fact, the Church of the Thomas Christians was now classified in the Latin Church (Roman Church, Western Church). The "Catholic Encyclopedia" of 1912, a work approved by Rome, judges it as follows:
“ The only case in which an ancient Eastern rite was deliberately romanized is that of the Malabar Christians. Here it was not the authority of Rome, but the misguided zeal of Alexius de Menezes, Archbishop of Goa and his Portuguese advisers during the Synod of Diamper , that destroyed the ancient rite of the Malabar Christians. "
Consequences of the Synod
Although the Synod was never confirmed in Rome, many of the resolutions lasted for a long time. Some points are still binding today, not because of the Synod of that time, but because of other canonical legal provisions. At the latest with the fall of the Portuguese colonial rule in South India, the Synod of Diamper was no longer invoked there.
Mar Abraham, who died in 1597, was followed by the Latin archbishops Francis Roz SJ († 1624), Stephen Britto († 1641) and Francis Garcia († 1659). 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.
Under Archbishop Francis Garcia von Angamaly there was a revolt of the Thomas Christians, because this u. a. appointed a vicar general of Latin for them instead of their own rite and they feared even greater oppression. In 1653 they swore at the Coonan Cross in Fort Cochin that they would never again tolerate the Latin Archbishop of Angamaly or the Jesuits over them. It was expressly avoided to renounce Rome, they only demanded bishops of their own liturgy and thought of a renewal of the historical jurisdiction of the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church of Babylon. The majority of the Thomas Christians joined the uprising. Both sides remained adamant and Thomas Parambil, Archdeacon of Archbishop Garcia, had himself proclaimed a " counter-archbishop " a few months later, without consecration, and in an "emergency ceremony", instead of 12 simple priests, laid hands on with the promise of making up for episcopal ordination .
When it became apparent that there would be a final break with the Catholic Church, many shied away from it and fell away from the revolting group. Rome immediately sent Carmelites to India to contain the looming schism. The head of the Carmelites was Father Joseph of S. Maria de Sebastiani, OCD. With the help of the Thomas Christian Alexander de Campo , who was ordained by him as bishop , it was possible to bring the majority of the Thomas Christians back under the authority of Archbishop Francis Garcia. The Latin bishops ruled the Catholic Thomas Christians until 1896 through vicars general of the Chaldean rite, without episcopal ordination, of which one, Kuriakose Elias Chavara (1805–1871), was beatified. This was followed by auxiliary bishops who remained subordinate to the Latin bishops; only on St. Thomas's Day, December 21, 1923, did 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 .
The smaller part of the Thomas Christians declared themselves to be autocephalous and the aforementioned Archdeacon Thomas Parambil had himself consecrated as Mar Thomas I subsequently as Bishop by Mar Gregorios, Jerusalem Metropolitan of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch , in 1665 . This was the beginning of a number of church divisions within the remnant community of Thomas Christians that continue to this day. In addition, they had to exchange their Chaldean (East Syrian) rite for the Antioch (West Syrian) rite of the consecrating Jerusalem Metropolitan. Some of them returned to the Catholic Church in 1930 with their subsequently adopted West Syrian Mass rite, today's Syro-Malankara Catholic Church .
literature
- Johannes Hutter: The Synod of Diamper (Udayamperur), Malabar. Aachen 2012. (Mariawalder Medieval Studies, Vol. 4). ISBN 978-3-8107-0106-0 .
- Bertold Spuler : Handbook of Oriental Studies. 1st section, 8, volume, 2nd section Religious history of the Orient in the time of the world religions. 1961, scan from source
- Bernard of St. Thomas TOCD: A brief sketch of the History of the St. Thomas Christians. St. Joseph's Press, Trichinopolly 1924.
- J.-B. Chabot: L'autodafé des livres syriaques du Malabar . In: Florilegium Melchior de Voguë . Imprimerie Nationale, Paris 1909, 613–623.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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)
- ↑ To the All Saints Synodal Church
- ^ Source of the quotation from the "Catholic Encyclopedia", 1912, Volume 13, Chapter "Rites", subchapter "Difference of rite", Section 6
- ↑ On the Coonan Cross Oath
- ↑ s. Christian denominations in Kerala