KOCHI: The 425th-anniversary celebrations of the Udayamperoor Synod, an epoch-making event in the history of the Church in Kerala, will be held at the Pastoral Orientation Centre (POC) here on Thursday. The celebrations are organised by the Kerala Region Latin Catholic Council’s (KRLCC) Heritage Commission jointly with the Archdiocese of Verapoly.
According to Church historians, this path-breaking Synod was held in Udayamperoor near Kochi in 1599 and it witnessed the convergence of 813 persons, including 660 lay people and 153 priests from more than 100 churches across what is now Kerala. Also known as the Synod of Diamper, this event brought the ancient Nasrani Christians of Kerala, who trace their origin to St Thomas the Apostle, under the Catholic fold. Led by the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa Dom Aleixo de Menezes, this Synod passed a set of decrees purging the so-called “unChristian practices” existing among the Nasranis at that time and restructuring their centuries-old liturgical practices and belief systems to make them more in line with the Roman Rite.
The Synod also removed the Nasrani Christians from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of the Church of the East based in what is now Iraq and placed them under Papal authority. Several critics and historians view this as a forced imposition of the Roman Rite on the Nasranis who were following the liturgical traditions of the Church of the East in the East Syriac language for more than a millennium.
Giving a brief peep into the event that took place from June 20 to 26, 1599, Fr Yesudas Pazhampilly, director of PRD, Archdiocese of Verapoly, of the Latin Catholic Church, said, “The Udayamperoor Synod was held at a time when injustice, superstitions, caste system, untouchability and many other social evils were prevalent in Kerala. It was a historical event that sounded the bugle heralding the advent of a ‘New Kerala’. The Synod was held during the time of Pope Clement VIII and was led by the Archbishop of Goa Dom Aleixo De Menezes.”
“More information regarding the Synod can be obtained from the Jornada penned by a Portuguese Augustinian monk named Antonio De Gouvea,” said Fr Pazhampilly. According to him, during the nine sessions of the Synod, 200 decrees were issued. These decrees or canons were promulgated by Archbishop Menezes in Portuguese. It was then translated into Malayalam.”
The slogan that all men are equal and that there is no differentiation between them based on caste was first proclaimed at Udayamperoor Synod, he added.
Meanwhile, some Church historians have a different take on the Synod. According to Kurian Thomas, a Church historian, the Portuguese arrived in India in 1498. “While colonising countries all around the world, it was in Kerala that for the first time they came across a native Christian community. However, they saw this community as an obstacle to the agenda of spreading their form of Christianity. From that day onwards they tried to make the Christians in Kerala accept the Pope in Rome as the supreme head,” he said.
“However, they met with stiff resistance from the Nasranis in Kerala. It was at that time that the Portuguese brought in the Archbishop of Goa. He was not only the Archbishop of Goa but also the Governor. He used his political might to hold the Udayamperoor Synod to force the Nasranis into accepting the Pope. My argument is that if he hadn’t been the Governor of Goa, the Synod wouldn’t have happened,” he added. Another aspect that needs to be noted is that as per the canon laws of the Roman Catholic Church even if one lay person participates in the Synod, it will be considered null and void, said Kurian. “All that was flouted when the Synod was held,” he added.
Resentment against the reforms introduced by the Synod in various walks of ecclesiastical and secular life along with other factors gradually snowballed into the Coonan Cross Oath or the Oath of the Slanting Cross, which took place on January 3, 1653, near the northern part of Our Lady of Life Church in Mattancherry. Hundreds of irate Nasrani Christians tied long ropes to the historic wooden cross there facing the backwaters and pledged not to subject themselves to the Jesuits. Many critics and historians view this as an indirect revolt against the Pope himself.
This historic event witnessed the Christians splitting into two factions. One faction stood with Rome and they came to be known as the Pazhaya Kuttukar while those who split off and rallied under Archdeacon Thomas came to be called the Puthen Kuttukar. Subsequently, 12 priests of the faction opposing Rome met under the leadership of a priest named Anjilimoottil Itty Thoman Kathanar at Alangad the same year and ‘ordained’ Archdeacon Thomas as ‘Metropolitan’. Assuming the moniker of Mar Thoma I, the newly ‘ordained’ Archdeacon started communicating with the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch and the Jacobite Church was established with Angamaly as its headquarters.