Archbishop Mar Ivanios of Trivandrum, who toured Australia some time ago, has observed his 25th episcopal jubilee. He received an Apostolic Blessing from His Holiness the Pope. Called the “Newman of India,” Archbishop Ivanios came over to the Catholic Church with a number of his followers in 1930 from the Jacobite schismatic church when he was already an Archbishop. Upon his conversion, the Holy See made him the head of the Syro-Malankara Rite, which has its liturgy in Malabar.

Copyright: Catholic Weekly 10th May 1951

TRIVANDRUM (India) — Archbishop Mar Ivanios, Ordinary of the Malankara Rite in the Archdiocese of Trivandrum, has openly lodged a protest against the new educational plan fostered by the Government of the State of Travancore-Cochin.

He claims that the plan is dangerous to the present Catholic school system and would give the Government too great a control over the conduct of privately owned school systems and their properties.

Archbishop Mar Ivanios, who was in Australia for the centenary of the Archdiocese of Melbourne in 1948, is an educator in his own right.

“The Commonweal,” a famous American Catholic weekly, in an editorial on Mahatma Gandhi, which appeared on the very day he died, announced: “Mahatma Gandhi… Long may he live.” Gandhi was born and brought up under the influence of some of the best Indian traditions and culture. To the end, he remained a devout Hindu. The various circumstances of his life, guided by sincere attempts to follow the Light, as he saw it, made him what he was. His experiences in England as a student, in South Africa as a lawyer, led him to take up the fight against color prejudices and social injustice. His application of the weapon of non-violence and eventually his fight on a nation-wide scale in India, by the practice of soul and force (that is, moral power born of the love of truth and justice) set in motion the psychological powers of the Indian nation according to the principles of the Christian religion.

Read The Bible

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Sermon on the Mount, has said: “You have heard that it was said: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you that you should not offer resistance to injury. If a man strikes thee on the right cheek turn the other cheek also towards him.” (Matthew, Ch. V., Verses 38 and 39). Gandhi was in the habit of reading the Holy Bible; and the teachings of Christ impressed him very much. It requires greater courage to endure evil and refuse to retaliate and attack the enemy, to renounce violent direct action and accept the non-violent direct action of love. Gandhi understood what Christ meant by this teaching and tried to carry it out in practice, not only in his own life but by extending its observance in the social and political affairs of his own country. He was so convinced of the truth of this teaching of Our Lord that he was prepared to sacrifice himself and his all in the pursuit of this great ideal of practical Christianity. Gandhi pursued the teachings of Christianity as he understood them. He was a sincere believer in God and in his own religion. He believed that the basic ethical teachings of all religious groups are the same; and therefore in the prayer meetings that he held, which were attended by thousands of various religious groups, he expounded these teachings by citing parallel passages from the writings of the Hindu, Moslem, Confucian, and other religions. He resorted to this practice for the purpose of making this teaching acceptable to everybody and also for creating homogeneity in Indian society, in the pursuit of high moral ideals.

Christian Teaching

Mahatma Gandhi held in the highest regard the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Towards the end of his life, he said that the claims of Christianity, which manifest so much self-sacrifice and devotion, deserve to be investigated. He held the Holy Father, the Pope, in the highest esteem. The public utterances of the Pope were most sincerely appreciated by him but, with all that, he passed away before he received the grace to accept Christ as the Savior of mankind.

Social Doctrines

The social and political program laid down by Gandhi for universal peace and for the amelioration of the conditions of the underprivileged are along the teachings of Christianity and the Papal Encyclicals. He held that the whole world should accept the principles of love and truth and justice not only in dealings between man and man but also between nation and nation, and between race and race. Only if people strove to be faithful to God, the Creator of mankind, and loyal to one another, could humanity be saved. The last act of Mahatma Gandhi after he was mortally wounded was to fold his hands as if in an attitude of prayer and to forgive the assassin who shot him. I think his life is an invitation to all peoples and nations to believe sincerely in God and in the power of prayer and in the practice of Christian living according to one’s light. He was opposed to Communism, to birth control, to luxurious living, and to Materialism. The general influence of his life in India has been, in my opinion, to prepare India for the eventual acceptance of Christ and His teachings. Gandhi in his autobiography entitled, “My Experiments with Truth,” says: “It is celibacy which has kept Catholicism green until the present.” In another passage he says: “I worship God as Truth… I have not yet found Him… I am prepared to sacrifice the things, dearest to me in pursuit of this quest even if the sacrifice demanded be my very life. I hope I may be prepared to give it. But, as long as I have not realized this absolute truth, so long must I hold by the relative truth as I have conceived it. The relative truth must meanwhile be my shield and buckler, for that part has saved me from coming to grief, and I have gone forward according to my light.”

Oriental Christians

The Christian Church in India is at the present time a small body—less than two per cent of the population. One of the important sections of the Christian community in India is the Oriental Christians, the descendants of the converts of St. Thomas, the apostle of Christ. About 800,000 of them are in the schismatic Church. Since my reunion with the Catholic Church in A.D. 1930, there has been a steady flow of these dissidents into the unity of the Catholic Church. Four Bishops, over 100 priests, and over 58,000 laity, some of whom are converts from paganism, have been brought into the true fold of Christ in the Ecclesiastical Province of Trivandrum, which the late Pope Pius XI, of happy memory, established for me and my followers soon after our reunion. I look forward to the help and prayers as well as sympathy of all Catholics in my endeavor to bring the entire body of the dissidents into their Father’s House.

This article was written by His Grace the Archbishop of Trivandrum and Metropolitan of the State of Travancore, India (Most Rev. Mar Ivanios, O.I.C., D.D., M.A., L.L.D.), who is now in Sydney. The Archbishop came to Australia for the Melbourne Centenary Celebrations.

Copyright: Catholic Weekly (Sydney) 10th June 1948

Archbishop Mar Ivanios of Trivandrum, India, arrived by air last night after attending the Roman Catholic centenary celebrations in Melbourne. He will leave for India on Tuesday aboard the Stratheden.

Introduction: By far the most colourful prelate to visit Melbourne for the Diocesan Centenary celebrations as Archbishop Mar Ivanios, of Trivandrum, India. This bearded and turbaned Hierarch was a centre of interest at many of the festivities connected with the week of rejoicing.

Reunion with the Catholic Church: The story of his reunion with the Catholic Church is worthy of recall. On the second of May, 1932, Pope Pius XI, whom the Eastern Christians delight to call “The Pope of the Reunion of Christendom,” conferred the Sacred Pallium on a newly re-united Metropolitan of the dissident Eastern (Jacobite) Church. Several high dignitaries of the Church in Rome, the late Father-General of the Society of Jesus, priests and nuns, and many English-speaking residents, assisted at the ceremony. It was his Excellency, Mgr. Cicognani, the present Apostolic Delegate to the United States, then the Assessor of the Sacred Oriental Congregation, who presented Archbishop Mar Ivanios to the Holy See to be invested with the Sacred Pallium.

Submission and Recognition: Archbishop Mar Ivanios had made his submission to the Catholic Church in 1930. His Eminence, Cardinal Mooney, while Apostolic Delegate to the East Indies, kindly made all the arrangements for the reunion of Archbishop Mar Ivanios and his followers. The Holy See, recognising the validity of the Sacraments and the Consecration he had received in the dissident Church, received him in his office and jurisdiction. The investiture of the Sacred Pallium followed upon the decision of the Holy See to appoint him as Archbishop-Metropolitan of the new branch in the tree of the Catholic Church—the re-united Malankara Church (Syro-Malankarese) which he had brought into Communion with the Father of all Christendom. By Apostolic Constitution “Christo Pastorum Principi,” the Holy See constituted a new hierarchy for his Rite. His is an Ecclesiastical Province with the Metropolitan at its head, and directly under the Pope, Archbishop Mar Ivanios was appointed the first Metropolitan Archbishop of Trivandrum, and Bishop Mar Theophilos, the first Bishop of the Suffragan Diocese of Tiruvella.

Causes of Schism: Local misunderstandings and the absence of facilities of communication with Rome were responsible for the schism. There were no doctrinal disputes. These dissidents went to Mass on Sunday, and to Confession and Communion. They prayed to our Blessed Lady— “The All-pure and Ever-Virgin Mother of God—and to the Saints. They had very great devotion to Our Lady and delighted to speak of her as the Second Heaven.

Observances and Practices: In her honour, they fasted and abstained every Wednesday, observed fast or abstinence for fifteen days before the Feast of the Assumption, and for eight days before the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady. January 15 is observed in her honour as the Lady of the Seeds (this being the commencement of the sowing season), and on May 15 she is honoured as the Lady of the Harvest (this being the commencement of the harvest season). December 26 is the “Feast of the Glories of Mary,” wherein her Divine Motherhood and her perpetual divinity are extolled. December 27 is the Feast of Gratitude to St Mary and St. Joseph for saving Jesus from the martyrdom of the infants, who, too, are venerated on that day. (The ecclesiastical calendar in the Malankara Rite is different from the Western Church.)

Prayers and Devotions: The dissidents always said prayers and offered Masses for the dead. In the Mass they pray for their Patriarch, for all the Bishops in the four quarters of the world, and for the entire Church upon earth. They pray for the civil power as well as for the “persecuted and the oppressed.” In their Canon Law, they regard the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, as “the Head and Chief of all the Patriarchs of the Church.”

Early Life and Career: Archbishop Mar Ivanios, after taking the Degree of Master of Arts in an Indian University, was for some time in charge of the dissident Jacobite Seminary and High School and was subsequently a Professor in an Indian University. After resigning this latter position, he devoted himself to the religious life and founded two religious congregations, one for men and the other for women, both of which follow the ancient Rule of St. Basil. Subsequently, he was consecrated Bishop, and later was installed as Metropolitan of Bethany in the dissident Church.

Efforts for Reunion: Realising the heinousness of schism and anxious to bring the dissidents back into unity of the Catholic Church, he approached the Holy See, on his behalf, and on behalf of some of the other prelates, and prayed to be received into the Catholic Church. The Holy See, after satisfying itself on the validity of the Sacraments which Mar Ivanios had received in the dissident Church, and the antiquity of the Malankara Rite, decided to receive him and his Suffragan Bishop, together with their priests and faithful, into the Church, and also to permit the continued use of the Malankara Rite, which is the only time-honoured Indian adaptation of the Pure Syrian Rite of Antioch. Through the efforts of Archbishop Mar Ivanios, three dissident Bishops, and several priests and many faithful have come into the Catholic Church. On September 20, 1930, the date of his submission, it was five persons—the Metropolitan, a Bishop, one priest, one deacon and one layman that made their submission.

Growth and Recognition: With the blessing of the Pope, and under the kind supervision of the Sacred Oriental Congregation and of his Excellency the Most Rev. Mgr. Leo P. Kierkels, Apostolic Delegate of the East Indies, this branch of the Tree of Life has grown to such an extent that within the fifteen years of its existence, it has reckoned among its members one Archbishop Metropolitan, two Titular Metropolitans (one since deceased), one Bishop, as well as one hundred and twenty-four native priests, and 57,737 faithful. The dissident Church from which these have come over, is divided into three sections with twelve Bishops, and an hierarchical organization of its own. The dissidents number over 800,000, making a total non-Catholic population of 1,100,000. The dissidents are advanced educationally and in other ways. Socially, too, they are among the foremost of the country.

International Relations: Archbishop Mar Ivanios went to America with the permission of the Sacred Oriental Congregation, to participate in the Marian Congress at Ottawa in 1947 and to manifest his great devotion to Our Lady. It was his intention to show his regard to the Catholic Church in the United States and to learn the work of the Church in the matter of Catholic Action, education and the apostolate. Among the great leaders of the Church in the United States, Francis Cardinal Spellman, who, as President of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, has shown such a bountiful interest in it, welcomed Archbishop Mar Ivanios. In connection with the Melbourne Diocesan Centenary celebrations, Archbishop Mar Ivanios visited Australia. He has since visited Brisbane, and Sydney, and will visit Adelaide and Perth before returning to India in June.

Published in The Advocate, May 27, 1948. Copyright of The Advocate.

Archbishop Mar Ivanios, whose diocese of 27 million inhabitants is in Travancore State, India, said Mass at Lourdes Hill Convent today. The picture was taken in the Convent grounds.

Archbishop Mar Ivanios, from Travancore, India, who said mass at Lourdes Hill Convent.

Introduction: The “Newman of India” was the characterization applied to Archbishop Mar Ivanios of Trivandrum, of the Indian State of Travancore, at the opening ceremony of the Church Unity-Octave at the National Shrine at the Immaculate Conception, Washington, U.S.A.

Distinguished Visitor: Mar Ivanios will be a distinguished visitor to the forthcoming Melbourne Diocesan Centenary celebrations.

Liturgical Celebration: Archbishop Ivanios celebrated the liturgy according to the Syro-Malankarese Rite before 1200 persons in the crypt of the still-unfinished shrine on the campus of the Catholic University of America. It was Mgr. Thomas McMahon, executive secretary of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, who referred to him and to his action in leading a group of dissident Jacobites into the Church in 1930.

Comparison to Newman: “Mar Ivanios is a Newman of India who entered into his Gethsemane ‘mid the encircling gloom,’ who prayed as Newman prayed, ‘lead, kindly light, lead thou me on,’ and he had to relinquish all temporal possessions to enter the one true fold of the Good Shepherd,” Mgr. McMahon declared in his sermon.

Copyright: The Advocate, 15th April 1948.