Mar Ivanios, asked that he be reunited with the Holy See. This was granted, and his episcopal powers were recognized. Thus, he became the “Newman of Jacobitism,” for he was soon followed by the Bishop-designate of the schismatic Church, the Bethany Monks, the Bethany Sisters, several Jacobite priests, and great numbers of adherents of the Church. So remarkable has been the move towards Rome that competent authorities believe the schism will be extinct within half a century.
Last week we published an illuminating interview with Archbishop Mar Ivanios, wherein the prelate told why he joined the Catholic Church. The Archbishop, who is now Catholic Metropolitan of Bethany, has written to the editor of the ‘Catholic Press’ giving further details. The letter follows:
Catholic Archbishop’s House,
Tiruvella, Travancore,
S. India,
31st March, 1931.
Dear Editor,
I write to introduce myself to you as the Archbishop Metropolitan who was recently reunited with the Holy See. It was very kind of you to have published the photo.
Please find enclosed a letter from his Excellency the Bishop of Kottayam, introducing me to you.
I take the liberty to enclose the copies of two letters — one that I wrote to the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, imploring his Beatitude to abandon his schism and enter into the unity of the True Church; the other I wrote to some of the priests of this country who appeared much interested to know of the progress we were making in the direction of conversion and organization.
If you consider that the publication of accounts about us will interest your readers, you are perfectly free to make use of these letters, and, in fact, we shall be very glad.
I understand that the Very Rev. Ramban Joseph Pulikot, formerly Bishop-designate of the Jacobite Church, and who has followed me into the Catholic Church, is forwarding to your address a few photos, and the translation of a farewell speech delivered by a leading Jacobite priest to his former congregation on the eve of his departure from the Jacobite Church. I trust you will be glad to publish these.
With best wishes and blessings on all your efforts in the cause of our Holy Faith, I remain, yours in Our Blessed Lord,
IVANIOS, Archbishop of Bethany.
Letter to Jacobite Patriarch.
JOY IN THE TRUE CHURCH.
Extracts from the Archbishop’s letter to Maran Mar Ignatius Elias, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, Mosul, are as follows:
I trust your Beatitude is aware of the great step the Holy Spirit enabled me to take in that I made my submission to the Pope, the successor of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and was thus re-united with the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I am supremely happy in that the most merciful Lord gave me this privilege. But my joy and happiness can never be complete unless and until your Beatitude and all the Jacobites forsake their schism and enter into the unity of the True Church.
Our Lord founded one Church only. He founded it on St. Peter. He entrusted the keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter. He authorized St. Peter to confirm his brother Apostles in the True Faith. He gave the Universal Pastoral charge to St. Peter. The Pope is the true successor of St. Peter. He is the Universal Bishop of Christendom, the divinely appointed center of Unity for the visible Church on earth, and the infallible guardian of the Catholic Truth.
May I on bended knees implore your Beatitude to consider this true doctrine which is clearly set forth in the Sacred Scriptures, and in the above quoted and hundreds of other passages in the ecclesiastical and dogmatic books of your Communion, and to ask Our Divine Saviour for the grace of the humility of heart, which alone can give the light to see and the strength to obey the will of God and enable you to make due submission to His Holy Will and heal the wounds in His Body. If only your Beatitude will prayerfully consider this matter, I am confident that the Divine grace will not fail you. For the reunion of Christendom is God’s Holy Will. And the Holy Father the Pope, and the entire Catholic Church, are praying in this Church Unity Octave, for the return of the separated Christians to the True Fold of Christ.
The Schism of the 5th Century.
There are two schisms which your Beatitude can heal by a single act. The first of these is primarily concerned with your own people in Syria and Turkey. It is the great schism which took place in the East in the middle of the 5th century when the followers of Eutychus and Dioscorus disobeyed the Universal Church, and repudiated the Pope and the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. Though the Jacobites anathematized Eutychus later, and in principle adopted the Chalcedonian definition of the Catholic faith, the schism has continued to this day.
The second is one that is confined to the Christians of St. Thomas in Malabar. In the 17th century, a section of these Christians revolted against the Catholic Church and went into schism for merely personal and social reasons. This schism had nothing to do with faith and dogma. Later on, the schismatic Christians of St. Thomas accepted the supremacy of the Jacobite Patriarch, and thus nominally became Jacobites. The immediate cause of the schism was a false rumor that the Portuguese had drowned a Bishop come to Malabar from the East. This Bishop was not a Jacobite, and was not sent here by the Jacobites.
The Jacobite Christians of St. Thomas in Malabar have, during the past two and a half centuries of their connection with the Jacobite Patriarchate, suffered and lost a great deal. The greatest loss is the loss of Catholic Unity. In the 19th century, a section of the St. Thomas Christians fell under the influence of Anglican Protestants, imbibed Protestant teaching, and became adherents of the Church Missionary Society (Anglican), while another section constituted itself into an independent Church — called the Mar Thomas Church — whose teachings are no less Protestant than those of the O.M.S. The Mar Thomites are about 100,000 strong now. In the beginning of the 20th century, the remaining Jacobites who are over 300,000 strong, were again split into two, and wasted much of their resources in mutual conflicts and protracted litigation. The corruptive influence of repeated schisms and internecine strife has brought spiritual life to an extremely low level.
Taught by the Holy Spirit.
Your Beatitude is aware that I spent all my life for the service and spiritual amelioration of the Jacobite Church. And, later in life, the Holy Spirit most wonderfully taught me that true charity was impossible of attainment in a schismatic body, and that those who resist the will of God and obstinately continue in schism and heresy deserve eternal damnation.
The Holy Spirit taught me and my brother, Bishop Mar Theophilos, and the religious congregations of monks and sisters that God guided me to found, that perfection of humility and religious obedience were impossible of attainment in the Jacobite Church, which itself was founded on pride and disobedience. We discovered that all the work we did in the Jacobite Church was simply building on sand.
Our Lord built His Church on Rock — on the Rock of St. Peter. Since the Pope is the true successor of St. Peter, for anyone to attempt to build apart from the communion of the Pope, is to attempt to build apart from Christ.
I most humbly pray that your Beatitude return to the True Church. The Holy See has always been ready to receive Eastern schismatics and give them every facility to enable them to return to the Unity of the Church. The memorandum that I submitted to the Holy See expressing our desire to be received into the Catholic Church received the most sympathetic consideration.
Your Beatitude is also aware that the Catholics of the Puro Syrian Rite in Syria were most cordially received by the Holy Father. They use practically the same Missal and ritual as the Jacobites do and have their own Hierarchy. Since their reunion with the Holy See, they have made progress in every way, while those who persisted in schism have steadily declined. Social and moral degradation has been the consequence of spiritual degeneration. Systematic rejection of divine grace on the part of the schismatics has met with its inevitable reward.
Providence has called your Beatitude to your present position. I believe the Holy Spirit invites your Beatitude to surrender yourself entirely to His guidance, forsake your schism and enter into the unity of the Catholic Church by confessing the entire Catholic faith and making your submission to the Pope — the one center of unity for Christendom. . . . The Pope, the Vicar of Christ the King, guides and rules the entire Church on earth with the joyful cooperation and loyal support of all the Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops who constitute the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
I am confident that if your Beatitude would have the humility to return to the House of God, your Beatitude will be able to lead several thousands of schismatics into the Catholic Church, and thereby assure their salvation and bring abundant glory to Our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is the charity of Our Lord Jesus Christ that has constrained me to write this humble letter to your Beatitude. May I, with all the humility of heart that I am capable of, implore your Beatitude to do all that lies in your power to heal the Jacobite schism and gather all the scattered Jacobites into the unity of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. For it is the will and prayer of the Lord that ‘they may all be one.’
Letter to Priests.
In his letter to the priests, Archbishop Ivanios said:
I believe that you have been praying for us. You can realize how deeply I feel for those schismatics who still remain outside of the Catholic Church and are consequently deprived of the great blessing and spiritual consolation that is the birthright of the true children of God. My anguish is all the greater in that some of those dear ones, whom I love so much in Our Lord, have turned out enemies, not only of me and those with me but also of the True Church of Christ.
However, the Archbishop was full of hope and told of much success and many difficulties overcome.
Forty Years a Jacobite Priest.
FAREWELL ADDRESS TO CONGREGATION.
The farewell address of Rev. Father Thomas Kalaikkattil, alluded to in our letter from Archbishop Ivanios, was delivered in the Jacobite Church of Kaviyur, on Sunday, February 8, 1931. After the sermon, he left the Jacobite Church, proceeded to the neighboring Catholic Church, and made his profession of the Catholic faith before the Right Rev. Mar Theophilos, Bishop of Tiruvella. In part, he said:
I have to tell you something difficult and equally painful to you and me, I have determined to enter the Catholic Church, for I find it more conducive to my future peace of mind, joy of heart, and tranquility of conscience. When I came to this parish, 36 years ago, there was no church here. The people had to go to the Kalluppara church, which is three miles away. I started this church. From the day in which the first stone was laid for this church till this moment I have been your Vicar and have, I believe, served you most faithfully. And all these years you have truly loved and respected me and rendered me all necessary help. While I express my heartfelt thanks to you for all this, I ask your prayers and solicit your goodwill in the future.
Sacred Heritage of Catholic Past.
Even after those ancestors of ours who fell into schism, we continued to recite the Nicene Creed, as ever before. I am so thankful that we have preserved this Creed and the sacred heritages of our Catholic past. Our holy liturgy and the sacred books and the rituals and services come from very ancient times, and they really belong to our Catholic past; I very much desire to preserve these most sacred ancient treasures and yet be in communion with the Pope, who is the Head of the Visible Church on earth. His Grace Mar Ivanios, Archbishop of Bethany, now resident close to us at Tiruvella, which is only three miles from here, has marked out a way and opened a road for us to cross over from schism into the unity of the Catholic Church. His Grace, as you all know, has all his life labored and spent for the glory of God and the sanctification of souls in this country. During the past ten years, his Grace has done a wonderful spiritual work in this parish and surrounding parishes. The Bethany monks have been systematically visiting this parish at my request, conducting missions, hearing Confessions, and sanctifying many lives. His Grace Mar Ivanios and the Bethany monks, who were the real spiritual leaders and beacons of spiritual life in the Jacobite Church, are no longer members of the Jacobite Church. In September last, they made their submission to the Pope and united with the Catholic Church.
I ask you, men and women, to consider why his Grace Mar Ivanios and the Bethany monks and sisters left the Jacobite Church. It cannot be that they had any earthly purpose in view. For His Grace, who was the most respected prelate of the Jacobite Church, has nothing worldly to gain by this change. Men, money, and influence he had in plenty. The sacrifice that he made compels me and you to consider the question why he left the Jacobite Church and joined the Roman Catholic Church. I have considered it to the best of my ability. His Grace and his followers have realized one great Truth, that Our Lord has only one Church, that the Jacobite Church is a schismatic body, that it is the will of God that believers in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, should all belong to one Church. That one Church is visible on earth. That one Church has one center and one head. That center and head are the Pope.
I am convinced that it is the will of God that I should live the rest of my life as a Catholic and die as a Catholic. Whenever a Jacobite Bishop visits our Church and gives Benediction to the people, they sing a hymn in response. Some of you have sung it, and all of you have heard it. I recite it now for your information.
Rest on the Rock of Peter.
‘To those who raise controversy with her, the Church says, ‘I am built on Simon, Cephas (the Rock), and I have seventy pillars. The saints are treasured up in me. I am built by the prophets and confirmed by the Apostles; the martyrs are enshrined in my bosom. The fortification around me is impregnable. I resemble the adorned bride, and I stand firm in Christ, my Bridegroom.’
The Church is built on the Rock of St. Peter. Mar Ivanios has taken his barque through the ocean of life and found rest for his soul and for the souls of all of us, in Jesus Christ, on the rock of Simon Peter. And I have decided to be in his barque. In the name of God, I invite you all to abandon your schism and unite yourselves to their Lordship, Mar Ivanios, and Mar Theophilos. For they are united with the Pope — the Center of Unity for the Christian Church.
I invite you all to pray for me and for the reunion of Christendom. I invite you also, if you like, to come to the adjoining little hut, which serves as the chapel of his Grace Mar Ivanios, and witness the profession of faith that I shall make in the Catholic Church. It was my desire to be received into the Catholic Church by his Grace Mar Ivanios, who is my own spiritual father.
My most dear people, don’t imagine that I am deserting you. I am just doing what God and my conscience command me to do. I am doing that which will, I hope, eventually bring you all into the bosom of Our Lord and of His True Church.
Thirty-six years ago I came to you a black-bearded young man, full of energy and enthusiasm. Now, I leave you an old man, bent with age and weakness, and with a grey beard. Thanking you for your past kindness to and cooperation with me, I take leave of you for the present. Reflect and pray. God will guide you. Farewell!
May God bless you all.
Pathetic Scenes.
At the end of the sermon, pathetic scenes occurred in the church. The whole congregation was in tears, and many kissed the hand of the priest with deep emotion and followed him into the neighboring Catholic Church to witness the profession of faith of their former Vicar.
Rev. Father Thomas Kalaikkattil is a priest of considerable influence in the Jacobite community and is no doubt an asset to the Catholic Church.
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