The Newman of the East

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Catholic Herald, 02 January 2020

Like Newman, Mar Ivanios was part of a broader grouping that sought to discover the sources of unity in their own traditions, Anglican and Orthodox.

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

In 2019 we became more familiar with the life and mission of St John Henry Newman. Perhaps in 2020 we might learn something about Mar Ivanios, called the “Newman of the East” by his people.

This year the Syro-Malankara Church, the seat of which is here in Thiruvananthapuram, will be marking the 90th anniversary its reunion with Rome.

Mar Ivanios, who led the movement, was received into full communion on September 20, 1930. He is thus considered the father of the Syro-Malankara Church, one of the 23 Eastern Churches in communion with Rome.

The Syro-Malankara, like Syro-Malabar Catholics, trace their history to the missionary journey and martyrdom of St Thomas the Apostle in south India. It is traditionally held that he arrived on the south-west coast of India in 52 AD and established various churches in what are today the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. These “St Thomas Christians” were long united under their own bishops. In the early second millennium they began to be governed by bishops from the Near East and then centuries later from Portugal. Eventually, division came and the Church split into Latin Catholics, Syro-Malabar Catholics and the Orthodox. It was from these last that Mar Ivanios came.

He was born on September 21, 1882 into a family belonging to the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church. Baptised with the name Geevarghese, he joined the minor seminary before going to Madras for higher studies. He was ordained a priest in 1908, and served first as principal of the minor seminary at Kottayam before going to Calcutta as a professor. In Calcutta, Fr Geevarghese founded a monastic community in the Orthodox tradition.

In the 1920s there was a “Reunion Movement” in the Malankara Orthodox Church, and Mar Ivanios, who took that name upon being consecrated a bishop, was appointed to lead it. The movement towards corporate unity with Rome faltered, and Mar Ivanios found himself increasingly alone. In 1930, he and four others – a bishop, a priest, a deacon and a layman – entered into full communion with Rome.

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