Chaldean Catholics in India
By Weam Namou
Built in 1814, Marth Mariam Cathedral is a Chaldean Syrian Church—the oldest church in Thrissur, a town in Kerala in southern India. This is where people from the Middle East settled long before St. Thomas arrived at its coast in 52 A.D. to spread the Gospel. They came because it was an international trade center. It was known for its natural resources, such as black pepper, which was highly in demand in the West because it was used as an antibiotic.
“Our bishops came from Babylonia,” said Mr. Roji Matthew, a Chaldean Catholic living in Kerala. Some four generations back, his ancestors include Iraqis and other Middle Easterners. “Our priests were the same as the Chaldean priests. They could marry and they didn’t have much connection with Rome, but we were connected to the Middle East, to the Chaldean Church.”
St. Thomas purportedly built 7 churches in India. When the Portuguese arrived in Kerala in 1498, they set out to “Latinize” the Church. They condemned the Syriac rites and many practices of the Syriac Christians.
“Unfortunately, instead of having a friendly relationship with the Christians and the Jews, they had a strained relationship,” said Matthew, who has a postgraduate in Personal Management, Emotional Intelligence, and an MBA in Human Resources. He is also working on a Master’s in Islamic History and observed that Portugal, having been oppressed under Islamic rule for over 500 years, used similar oppressive tactics against Syriac Christians. “They treated us as if we were not real Christians and declared us heretics.”
The Portuguese gained access to Kerala and wanted to either destroy Syrian Christians or assimilate them into the Catholic Church. They blocked all the Chaldean bishops coming from the Middle East and placed the Syrian Christians under a Latin Portuguese Bishop. People rebelled, but since they had no support from the king or government, an illegal synod was setup without the approval of Rome to change the community’s system and control it. As a result, some people left the Catholic Church.
“Some, like my forefathers, stayed in that church, keeping our Syriac traditions,” said Matthew, “at the same time, adopting some of the Latin system.”
Mar Aprem Mooken is the bishop of Marth Mariam Cathedral, built at the request of 52 Syrians brought to India by Sakthan Thampuran for trade and commercial activities. He was consecrated Bishop in Baghdad, Iraq in 1968 and currently heads the Assyrian Chaldean Church of the East in India.
“I’ve been with the Chaldeans and the Assyrians, both together,” said Bishop Mar Aprem, “and your Cardinal Sako has been my friend for more than 25 years, since he was a priest.”
Mar Aprem met with Cardinal Sako when he visited Kerala with Father Basilio in January 2018 to celebrate the silver jubilee of granting Major Archbishop status to the Syro Malabar Church in India. Bishop Mar Aprem presented the Patriarch with 14 DVDs covering all the digitized Syrian manuscripts preserved in the Metropolitan’s Palace in Thrissur.
Local Connection
On Christmas Day of 2018, Asmaa Jamil, who was working in Chennai, India, flew to Kerala to visit Marth Mariam Cathedral. Her French secretary advised her, “Tell everyone you’re Syrian Christian and they will know that you’re a follower of St. Thomas.” But when Jamil arrived, she learned that there was no service at the church on Christmas Day. She was told, “We had them all last night, and the last one was at midnight.”
Happy to see a Chaldean from Iraq, she was taken to Bishop Mar Aprem’s house next to the church. He was expecting people and asked her to join them for tea and cake. They ended up chatting for a while. Jamil really appreciated their hospitality and was impressed that there was a Chaldean Syrian school belonging to the church.
Jamil attends mass at St. George Catholic Church in Troy. One of the parishioners there is Jose George Mappilaparampil. He and his family attended the Syro Malabar Catholic Church in Kerala. They emigrated to the United States in 2013.
“I researched about the Chaldean community here in Michigan and saw that here is my sister church,” said George. “We are family and follow the same liturgy.”
Subdeacon Samir Nissian taught Mappilaparampil the Aramaic alphabets. “I like the language, and I like the liturgy, and I’ve met some good friends who have the same interest as I do.”
For the past five years, Mappilaparampil has worked on the Aramaic Project, which attempts to honor and preserve the language. He has interviewed people from the Chaldean community such as members of Shlama Foundation and Father Manuel Boji. In November 2021, he presented the St. Thomas Cross of Nazranis from India as a symbol of a united Church of the East that follows east Syriac Aramaic liturgy to His Holiness Mar Awa III, Bishop Francis Kallabat, among others.