Malankara Metropolitan

The Malankara Metropolitan, or the Metropolitan of Malabar, is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of the Malankara Syrian Church. It evolved from the sixteenth-century East Syriac metropolitans of India, who were also styled as the Metropolitan of Malabar. Since the division among Saint Thomas Christians following the Synod of Diamper in 1599, the title has been primarily associated with the Syriac branch from the West, commonly known as the Malankara Church. Among this group, the office of the Malankara Metropolitan became the continuation of the local dynastic Archdeaconate.

The current Malankara Metropolitan is Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, who succeeded Baselios Marthoma Paulose II following his death on July 12, 2021.

The Apostle Thomas is said to have established the first Christian community on the Malabar Coast of India during the first century. When Portuguese Catholic missionaries arrived in Kerala in 1498, the colonial period was inaugurated, and many locals began to connect with the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch.

The Malankara church schism of 1912 resulted in the formation of two factions: the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church. The Catholicosate was established by the Orthodox faction of the Malankara Church, which elected an Orthodox Metropolitan as its head, the Catholicos. In contrast, the Jacobite faction continued to recognize the Patriarch of Antioch as the supreme head of the Church, electing a Jacobite Metropolitan as a head who functioned under the authority of the Patriarch.

Today, both churches claim the Malankara Metropolitan title. The Orthodox faction elects the supreme head of the Malankara Orthodox Church as the title Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan, whereas the Jacobite faction elects the local head of the church under the Patriarch with title Catholicos of India and Metropolitan trustee of the Syriac Orthodox Church.

As of 2023, the Catholicos of the East & Malankara Metropolitan is Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, who succeeded Baselios Marthoma Paulose II, who died in July of 2021.

The Metropolitan was previously chosen by a proclamation from the Government of Travancore and Cochin in South India.

Temporal, ecclesiastical, and spiritual administration of the Malankara Church is vested in the Malankara Metropolitan. The Malankara Metropolitan is the legal custodian of the Kottayam Old Seminary, the interest of the Vattipanam trust fund, and other common community properties of Malankara Church.