Note 81 — S (continued 2)

Immediately after the Synod of Diamper, a Jesuit Father, Franciscus Roz, a Spaniard by birth, was appointed Bishop of Angamāli by Pope Clement VIII. The title was soon after changed to that of Archbishop of Cranganūr. By this time, the rule of the Jesuits had become so intolerable to the Syrians that they resolved to have a Bishop from the East, and applied to Babylon, Antioch, Alexandria, and other ecclesiastical head-quarters for a Bishop, as if the ecclesiastical heads who presided over these places professed the same creed. The request of the Malabar Christians for a Bishop was readily responded to from Antioch, and Ahattala, otherwise known as Mar Ignatius, was forthwith sent. Authorities, however, differ on this point, for, according to some, this Ahattala was a Nestorian, or a protégé of the Patriarch of the Copts. Whatever Ahattala’s religious creed might have been, the Syrians appear to have believed that he was sent by the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch. The Portuguese, however, intercepted him, and took him prisoner. The story goes that he was drowned in the Cochin harbour, or condemned to the flames of the Inquisition at Goa in 1653. This cruel deed so infuriated the Syrians that thousands of them met in solemn conclave at the Coonen Cross at Mattāncheri in Cochin, and, with one voice, renounced their allegiance to the Church of Rome. This incident marks an important epoch in the history of the Malabar Church, for, with the defection at the Coonen Cross, the Malabar Christians split themselves up into two distinct parties, the Romo-Syrians who adhered to the Church of Rome, and the Jacobite Syrians, who, severing their connection with it, placed themselves under the spiritual supremacy of the Patriarch of Antioch. The following passage explains the exact position of the two parties that came into existence then, as also the origin of the names since applied to them. “The Pazheia Kūttukar, or old church, owed its foundation to Archbishop Menezes and the Synod of Diamper in 1599, and its reconciliation, after revolt, to the Carmelite Bishop, Joseph of St. Mary, in 1656. It retains in its services the Syrian language, and in part the Syrian ritual. But it acknowledges the supremacy of the Pope and his Vicars Apostolic. Its members are now known as Catholics of the Syrian rite, to distinguish them from the converts made direct from heathenism to the Latin Church by the Roman missionaries. The other section of the Syrian Christians of Malabar is called the Puttan Kūttukar, or new church. It adheres to the Jacobite tenets introduced by its first Jacobite Bishop, Mar Gregory, in 1665.”81 We have at this time, and ever after, to deal with a third party, that came into existence after the advent of the Portuguese. These are the Catholics of the Latin rite, and consist almost exclusively of the large number of converts gained by the Portuguese from amongst the different castes of the Hindus. To avoid confusion, we shall follow the fortunes of each sect separately.