THOMAS
G87
THOMAS
a prince of the House of Parma, and his mother was
the sister of Pope Innocent XII; before coming out to
Malabar he had obtained a decree from the Govern-
ment of Holhind authorizing the residence in Mala-
bar of one bishop and twelve Carmelite priests who
had to bo either Itahans, Germans, or Belgians; but
they were not admitted into Cochin.
The French traveller Anquptil du Perron, who visited Malabar in 17.5S, offers the following statistics roRariiing the number of Christians on the coast which he had obtained from Bishop Florentius, the Carmelite Vicar Apostolic of Malabar. He tells us that the bishop believed the total number of Chris- tians to amount to 200,000; of these 100,000 were C.-ithohc .S\Tians, another 50,000 were of the Latin Kit(>; both these were under his jurisdiction, while the re\'ulted S\Tians, who may be classed as Jacobites, were under Mar Thomas VI (who on his consecration in 1772 assumed the name and style of Dionysius I), and numbered 50,000. From the death of Archbishop Garcia in 1659 the See of Cranganore had no resident bishop till 1701, when Clement XI appointed Joao Rebeiro, a Jesuit. When the latter assumed charge the Carmehte Vicar Apostolic, .Angelus Francis, told his .SjTian flock that his jurisdiction had ceased and they must now pass over to that of the new Arch- bishop of Cranganore. The Syrians refused to ac- knowledge the new archbishop atid sent a petition to Rome that they preferred to remain imder the Car- melites, who had se\-enty-one churches in complete submission and eighteen in partial union (i. e., the parish was divided and part had submitted to Rome), while only twenty-eight churches remained altogether separate. Pope Clement, after informing the King of Portugal of the state of things, extended in 1709 the jurisdiction of Bishop Angelus over the dioceses of Cranganore and Cochin, and the pope assigned as a reason for doing so that the Dutch would not tolerate any Portuguese prelate in the country, and the Chris- tians threatened rather to return to schism than ac- cept the bishop sent out. For fuller particulars of this period the reader is referred to: G. T. Mackenzie, "History of Christianity in Travancore", in Census Report of 1901, Trevandrum; and Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomseo, "India Orientalis Christ." (Rome, 1794.)
On the arrival of the Dutch and the capture of Cranganore it became impossible for the Jesuits to re- tain the college at Vipicotta; they abandoned the r)lace and removing to the interior beyond the reach of their open enemies, opened a new college, called St. Paul's College, at Ambalacad, whence they controlled their new missions on the east coast. Bishop Rebeiro returned there and carried on his work; eventually several of the Syrian Catholic parishes went over to the succeeding Archbishop of Cranganore, and these Bventually lapsed under the control of the Arch- bishops of Goa. Bishop Rebeiro died at the college of Ambalacad on 24 Sept., 1716, is buried in the church if Puttencherra and has a tombstone with an inscrip- tion in Portuguese. His successors fixed Puttencherra 13 their rcsiflence, and the parish church became a pro-cathedral. The following particulars of their nomination and death are here recorded. Archbishop Rebeiro was .succeeded by Antonio Car^•allo Pimental ilso a Jesuit, consecrated as the former had been at the rhurch of Bom Jesus, Goa, by the archbishop on 29 Feb.. 1722, d. .it Puttencherra on 6 March, 17.52. F'aulinus says of him: "vir doctus et Malabarensibus jratus, qui eum nomine Budhi Metr.an, sapientis et fruditi pra>sulls compellebant. " He has a tomb- stone with inscription. Joao Luiz Va.sconccllos, also a Jesuit, was consecrated at Calicut by Bishop Cle- tnente of Cochin in 17.53, and d. .at Puttencherra in 1756; the church contains his tomb-stone with inscrip- tion. Salvador Reis, the last of the series who resided in India, was also a Jesuit; he was consecrated by the
same Bishop Clemente at Angengo on 5 Feb., 1758, d.
on 7 April, 1777, at Puttencherra and has his tomb-
stone with inscription in the same church. Paulinus
records of him "vir sanctimonia vitae pr.TcLarus " ; he
survived the suppression of his order. This closes the
list of the bishops who have governed the See of Cran-
ganore.
To complete the historical account of the Syrian Malabar Church, brief mention should also be made of the line of prelates who ruled over the schismatics who eventually became Jacobites, embracing that error through their prelates: Thomas I, proclaimed a bishop by those he had led (1653) into the aforesaid schism after the imposition of the hands of twelve priests his followers, and the placing on his head of a mitre and in his hand a pastoral staff. He continued obdurate and died a sudden death in 1673. Thom.as II, brother of the former, proclaimed in 1674, died eight days later struck by lightning. Thomas III, nephew of the former, received the mitre in 1676, a .Jacobite. Thomas IV of the same family, succeeded in 1676 and d. in 1686, a Jacobite. Thomas V, a nephew of the former, made every effort to obtain consecration but failed, d. in 1717, a Jacobite. Thomas VI received the mitre from his dying uncle and the imposition of hands of twelve priests. He wrote to the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch to send bishops. Eventu.ally the Dutch authorities helped him and obtained for him three bishops, on condition of his defraying the expenses. Three Jacobite bishops came out to India in 1751, Mar B<asil, M.ar Gregory, and Mar John. The first named died a year after arrival ; the second years Later consecr.ated Mar Thomas VI a bishop in 1772, and he assumed the name of Dionysius I. The Dutch authorities found great difficulty in obtaining payment for the expenses incurred; a suit was insti- tuted against the Jacobites in the Travancore Rajah's court in 1775 and payment of the amount, twelve thousand pounds, was obtained. He died in 1808.
For the long period between 1678 and 1886, the Catholic Syrians remained under the uninterrupted control of about fifteen Carmelite Bishops as vicars ApostoUc. During this period there had often arisen severe troubles which cannot here be detailed, quarrels between Syrian and Latin Christians, agitation against the control of some bishops; over and above these the ordinary trials of controlling such a large, factious, and difficult body. There had also been two most serious schismatical intrusions within this Syrian fold by Catholic Chaldean prelates who had come from Mesopotamia with the full connivance of the Chaldean Patriarch and against the express orders of the Roman Pontiff. The Carmelites had to face and surmount all these difficulties and keep the flock in due submission to ecclesiastical regime. Of the two intrusions, the first was that of the Ch.aldean Bishop Mar Roccos, who entered Malabar in 1861. Pius IX denounced him to the faithful as an intruder, yet he met with a complacent reception in many of the churches, succeeded in stirring up the dormant hydra of schism, and caused a great agitation. Fortunately for the peace of the Church he was persuaded to return to Mesopotamia within the year. The second, who came to Malabar in 1S74, caused much greater harm, the evil effects of which seem to be permanent in the principal church of Trichur, though elsewhere in process of time those evil effects have been remedied. This w.as the Bishop Melius, whom the patriarch h.ad sent over in spite of the strict prohibition of the same pope. It was only when .after repeated admonitions, the pope h.ad fixed .a limit of time after which should he continue refractory he would be excommunicated, that he yielded and .sent Bishop Melius instructions to return. When the troublesome ch.aractir of these people is taken into consideration it reflects great credit on the Carmelite Order that the bishops in
