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| Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi |
There were Christians in Kerala long before the
Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North
India some time after 6th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas,
disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is
quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman
Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, wrote in his encyclopaedic
work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), chastised the Romans’
greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no
less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than
its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to
Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible.
Even if Thomas did not come, the advent
of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The
Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4th century CE.
Thomas of Cana, or Knai Thoma as he is known in the history of Kerala’s
Christianity, is believed to have brought Persian Christianity to Kerala in
around 345 CE.
Jesus became one of the many gods of
the local pantheon. Those who accepted Jesus as their God came to be known as
Nasranis (from Nazarene). Persia provided Kerala’s Christians with
church buildings, bishops, and Syriac liturgy. The Syriac language, a dialect
of Aramaic (Jesus’ language), was used for religious purposes. Qurbana, which
is the Malayalam word for Mass even now, is the Aramaic word for ‘sacrificial
offering.’
The Persian bishops didn’t mind
Kerala’s Christians following certain Hindu traditions which they had been used
to. These Christians also celebrated the Hindu festivals, played Hindu music,
and even prayed in Hindu temples with a figure of Jesus placed along with the
Hindu idols. The Hindu customs related to birth, marriage, and death were
observed by the Christians too.
How Roman Catholicism
came to Kerala
All that changed totally with the arrival of the Portuguese. The Portuguese missionaries were appalled by the pagan practices of the Nasranis of Kerala. They made the Nasranis toe the Roman Catholic line and pledge allegiance to the Pope and his canon law.
One group of Christians refused to accept the Portuguese orders. They took another pledge by holding on to a rope whose one end was attached to
the cross of the Mattancherry church, not far from the church where Vasco da
Gama was buried.
The energy of the religious fervour of the Nazranis who took the pledge holding the rope was so much that the cross suffered a bent and the pledge came to be known in history as the Coonan (Bent) Cross Oath. Thus in 1653, a millennium and a half after Christianity entered the region, Kerala’s Christians became two factions: Roman Catholics led by the missionary zeal of the Portuguese priests and the Orthodox who resisted.
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| Coonan Cross Oath in artist's imagination |
Other denominations
The Orthodox group met with many divisions and subdivisions later
because of petty reasons.
Even among the Papists, a division
emerged eventually. A sizeable section of them was not willing to accept the
Roman ways totally. They stuck to their original Syriac liturgies and practices
and thus came to be known as Syro-Malabar Christians. It was only in the
second half of the twentieth century that Malayalam became the language of
Syro-Malabar church’s Qurbana. Recently some very unsavoury controversy hit the
church regarding whether the priest should face the altar during the Qurbana or
face the people. Petty matters can become big controversies that lead to major
rifts in religions.
Vasco da Gama was a Roman Catholic and his
body was buried in St Francis church, Fort Kochi. That church, built by the Portuguese
in 1503 and dedicated to St. Bartholomew, was India’s oldest European church.
The Dutch took it over after defeating the Portuguese and it became Protestant. Then it went
into the hands of the British and became Anglican. The British wanted to blow it up
initially, but at the last moment, the commanding officer changed his mind.
Now the Church of South India (CSI),
a Protestant denomination, looks after it. Vasco da Gama’s mortal remains were
taken back to his country a decade and a half after his burial in that church.
Vasco da Gama now has his eternal rest in a Catholic tomb, a majestic one, in
his own country. This Fort Kochi series, which will end with one more post, was
stimulated by my recent visit to St Francis church.
Vasco da Gama was a deeply religious
person, according to historians. Just before his first voyage to India, he
spent a whole night in a Lisbon chapel seeking divine blessings for his mission
to bring “Christians and spices” to Portugal from India. His religious fervour
inflicted much cruelty on many people in India. He used extreme violence against
unarmed civilians to establish Portuguese dominance both politically and
spiritually.
I left Fort Kochi pondering the calamitous relationship between politics and religion, which continues to be a menace even today in my country.
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| St Francis Church, Fort Kochi |
To be Concluded
You did not filled the gap, how the church dedicated to St Bathololomew, became St Francis' church. And the simplified Portrayal of the emergence of the Syro-Malabar Church does not do real justice to their multi-layered history!
ReplyDeleteAbout the transformation of St Bartholomew's to St Francis's, I think there is enough hint in the post where I mention the changing of ownwership from Portuguese to Dutch to British to CSI. Yes, I could have mentioned the role of the Portuguese Fransicans who originally built the church and in whose honour the CSI named it.
DeleteI didn't want to go into too many details about the Syro-Malabar church because most of my readers may not be interested in those 'layers'.