An identity crisis – the church from the East
By MATHEW SAMUEL
First published: Saturday, May 9, 2009
My wife and I visited a local clinic the other day. The nurse was
interested to know about us, probably noticing our skin color (we are
brown-skinned
as are most of us from India) and our names (which are distinctly
Christian sounding). "Where are you from?" she asked. "From South
India" I told her. "Hmm, the blessed missionaries," she uttered under
her breath, smiling knowingly. I knew what she was thinking and did
not blame her. She, like many people in the West knew of Christianity
in India as either the work of Roman Catholic or Anglican missionaries
from the West. I wanted to tell her that assumption was wrong. I
wanted to tell her about the church in India that is as old as any in
Christendom, but I just sighed.
I once had a boss who told me, "Your name just cannot be Mathew
Samuel. It’s got to have some middle name that I cannot pronounce." He
was referring to the names of Christians from India he had met who
perhaps had their family names as their middle names. I told him my
name was common in South India where I was born. I wanted to tell him
about the Church of St. Thomas in India, but I just smiled.
The sad truth is that this identity crisis for the Christian church
from the East is not just from outside. Ask a Malankara Orthodox
Christian (Malankara refers to the place where St. Thomas, one of the
12 disciples, is believed to have landed in India from the sea) if he
is Catholic or Protestant and you are likely to get answers like "I
think Catholic because we are not liberals" or "I think Protestant
because we do not have a pope." Over the centuries, Indian Christians
were nurtured spiritually by traditions and clergy from various
regions, including Persia and Syria. That the Malankara Church (or
Indian Orthodox Church as it is now known) has a lineage starting from
a time when the Roman Catholic Church was called the Church of Rome is
news to most Christians.
While the Armenian and Russian churches were persecuted by their local
rulers, Indian Church leaders were honored by Hindu kings. The Indian
Church assimilated aspects of Hindu culture, such as the tying of a
knot during the marriage ceremony, while maintaining an Oriental
Orthodox Christian faith, similar to the Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian
and Syrian churches. This unique blend of cross-bearing "Hindus" did
not go unnoticed by the Western imperialists who followed Vasco da
Gama in 1498 to the rich land of India, who saw them as "pagans" and
vowed to bring them to the faith.
Thus began a sad part of Indian Orthodox Church history, which
included links with the Catholic Church, links with Protestant
missionaries and help from the Syrian Church. Sadly each encounter,
with friend and foe, took its toll and there were breakaway groups
that wounded the church. It found its footing around the turn of the
20th century with a realization of its roots dating to the beginning
of Christianity and the establishment of a Catholicate, or
headquarters, in Kerala, South India, in 1912. Christianity in India
today includes Roman Catholics, Protestants, and two factions claiming
to be Orthodox Christians. (I belong to one of those.) Add to this the
flow of missionaries and evangelists from the West who see India as a
fertile land for implantation of their own versions of the
Gospel. This tumultuous history of the original Indian Church has
taken away its focus from the true priorities, which is to be the
Church of India and of the East, to show the love of Christ to
India. A bitter quarrel over control of church property lingers
between the two factions.
Now in its second and third generations as an immigrant community in
the United States, the Indian Orthodox Church faces the challenges of
language barriers, cultural differences and the eternal balancing act
to preserve its traditions while ensuring a meaningful Christian life
to its children in American society. The church is tackling these new
issues. But the original identity crisis remains and only awareness
and education can help stem the rot, and enable the church to flourish
in this country. Mathew Samuel, a member of the St. Paul’s Indian
(Malankara) Orthodox Church in Albany, is an information technology
consultant for the state Department of Transportation. He can be
reached at [email protected].
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
