Vatican confers Venerable status on Kerala’s Syro-Malankara Church founder Mar Ivanios

“This is a remarkable recognition, and we have been waiting for it for so long. The global church has recognised the unwavering commitment of our founder to providence, and it will continue to inspire our people to stand by the values the global church cherishes,” the church said in a statement.

“It’s a great recognition for the Kerala society and Mar Ivanios, who greatly contributed to its overall growth,” Cardinal Baselios Cleemis told South First.

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A step closer to sainthood

He said the Venerable position was the initial phase in the four-step process to sainthood.

By initiating the process, Pope Francis approved declaring the exceptional moral qualities of Mar Ivanios, who led the Syro-Malankara Church into communion with the Roman Catholic Church in 1930, thus establishing it as one of the 23 Eastern Rite Catholic Churches.

After a long-lost connection with the global Catholic Church following the meddling of Portuguese and Dutch priests in its affairs, and the forefathers making the historic Coonan Cross Oath to remain independent and autonomous in Kerala, the Malankara Church later witnessed a bitter war between the Jacobite and Orthodox factions for supremacy.

While Jacobites wanted to remain under the spiritual administration of the Patriarch of Antioch in modern-day Türkiye (previously Turkey) by being subservient to him, the Orthodox faction wanted to snap all foreign ties and elect a Catholicos of the East, headquartered at Kottayam in Kerala.

When the tussle turned into a law-and-order problem and a fight for usurping the inherited funds and properties, Mar Ivanios, who preferred spirituality over materialistic gains, chose a different path and took away a sizable chunk of the community to establish ties with the Roman Catholic Church.

Subsequently, he became the founder of the Syro-Malankara Church, which runs several of the state’s best educational and healthcare institutions, apart from engaging in many social welfare programmes.

Mar Ivanios also established the Order of the Imitation of Christ (OIC), also called Bethany Ashram for men, and the Sisters of the Imitation of Christ (SIC), known as Bethany Madhom for women.

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Newman of the East

Mar Ivanios is known as the Newman of the East due to his similarities with the actions of John Henry Newman, a 19th-century English theologian who initially embraced Anglicanism’s high church tradition but later sought harmony with the Catholic Church.

So far, the global Catholic Church has treated Mar Ivanios with the title of Servant of God.

“We are expressing our profound gratitude to the Holy See and Father for this significant act that makes us proud,” Cardinal Cleemis said.

Archbishop Mar Ivanios was born on 21 September 1882, in central Kerala to a family active in the affairs of the Malankara Church. Christened Geevarghese, he enrolled in the minor seminary before pursuing further education in Madras (now Chennai).

After being ordained a priest in 1908, he initially served as the head of the minor seminary at Kottayam. Later, he became a lecturer in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta), where he established a monastic community based on the Orthodox tradition.

In the 1920s, a movement known as the “reunion movement” emerged within the Malankara Orthodox Church. This movement bore similarities to the one among Anglicans in Oxford in the 1830s, centred around Newman.

Mar Ivanios, who assumed the title of bishop, led the group. However, the movement quickly encountered a crisis, leaving him isolated. In 1930, just four individuals joined in communion with Rome alongside him: A bishop, a priest, a deacon, and a layperson.

The challenging start, nevertheless, fuelled a narrative that gained significance within a century. Until his demise in 1953, Archbishop Mar Ivanios wholeheartedly committed himself to the instruction of youth, establishing a college in Thiruvananthapuram.

The Syro-Malankara Church has over 500,000 adherents, primarily located in Kerala, with additional diaspora populations in Europe and North America.

The archbishop died on 15 July 1953, aged 70, in Thiruvananthapuram.

The Syro-Malankara Church commemorated the 90th anniversary of its reconciliation with Rome in 2020.

The Syro-Malankara community, similar to Syro-Malabar Catholics, could be traced back to Saint Thomas the Apostle, believed to have spread Christianity in the southern region of India.

(Edited by Majnu Babu)