No one who knows the Malabar people will be surprised to learn that Mâr Dionysius did not accept the deposition of his Patriarch. He promptly retorted that his Church is an autocephalous branch of the Church of Christ, that the Patriarch had no right to excommunicate him, that, in any case, he was not going to be deposed. Half the Jacobites followed him. So now again there are a "Patriarch's party" and a "Metran's party" (Dionysius' followers),[1] not in communion with one another. Then Dionysius, to strengthen his position, invited the ex-Patriarch, Ignatius 'Abdu-lMasīḥ, to India.[2] 'Abdu-lMasīḥ came, backed Dionysius against his hated rival Sattūf, agreed that Dionysius' deposition was invalid, and excommunicated Mâr Cyril and the "Patriarch's party." He then made a bishop of Dionysius' party (not Dionysius himself)[3] its chief, with the title (new in India) Katholikos. This Katholikos is to be independent of Antioch and the Syrian Jacobites. He may ordain bishops by his own authority; when he dies they are to choose his successor. So 'Abdu-lMasīḥ, apparently more anxious to annoy Sattūf than to maintain the rights of Antioch over India, set up an autocephalous Jacobite Church at Malabar. 'Abdu-lMasīḥ, during his visit, ordained three new bishops to be suffragans of the Katholikos. His Katholikos died recently. Mâr Dionysius, Alvarez, and these three are now about to elect a Katholikos.
Now we turn to the Reformed Church. Their Mâr Athanasius Matthew (p. 370) ordained a bishop, Joseph Cyril, for a small group at Anjur (in British Malabar, north of Trichur), which accepts the Reformer's ideas and is in communion with them.
- ↑ Notice that these names now have a new sense. In the old days the "Patriarch's party" were the Jacobites, the "Metran's party" the Reformers (p. 371).
- ↑ There was considerable dispute among the Syrian Jacobites as to the lawfulness of 'Abdu-lMasīḥ's deposition and Sattūf's accession to the Patriarchate in 1906 (p. 339). I gather that Dionysius' idea was to maintain that it was unlawful, that Sattūf is no true Patriarch; so his action in India does not count. And 'Abdu-lMasīḥ, still lawful Patriarch, acknowledged Dionysius, and by his supreme authority made the Malabar Jacobites autocephalous. Needless to say, 'Abdu-lMasīḥ, now that he is a Catholic, repents of all these things. By his conversion he has rather left Dionysius and his friends in the lurch.
- ↑ This is strange. I do not know the reason of it.
