ordinary dress consists of white trousers, and a kind of long white shirt with short sleeves and a flap hanging down behind, supposed to be in the form of a cross. Over this the Jacobites now wear a black coat. Priests are allowed to marry, except in the Romo-Syrian community; but, among the Jacobites, a priest may not marry after he has once been ordained, nor may he re-marry or marry a widow. Malpans, or teachers, are the heads of the religious colleges, where priests are trained. Jacobites also now shave clean, while other Syrian priests wear the tonsure. Every church has not more than four Kaikkars or churchwardens, who are elected from the body of parishioners. They are the trustees of the church property, and, with the priest, constitute a disciplinary body, which exercises considerable powers in religious and social matters over the members of the congregation. The Romo-Syrians follow the doctrines and ritual of the Roman Catholics, but they use a Syriac version*[1] of the Latin liturgy. Jacobites and St. Thomas' Christians use the Syriac liturgy of St. James. Few even of the priests understand Syriac, and, in the Reformed Syrian churches, a Malayālam translation of the Syriac liturgy has now been generally adopted. The Jacobites say masses for the dead, but do not believe in purgatory; they invoke the Virgin Mary, venerate the cross and relics of saints; they recognise only three sacraments, baptism, marriage (which they always celebrate on Sundays) and the mass; they prescribe auricular confession before mass, and at the mass administer the bread dipped in the wine; they recite the Eastern form of the Nicene Creed, and discourage laymen from studying the Bible. The Reformed Syrians differ from them in
- ↑ * The Syriac is not a modern Syriac dialect, but is very like the ancient Aramaic.
