Malankara Rite

The Malankara Rite is the form of the West Syriac liturgical rite practiced by several churches of the Saint Thomas Christian community in Kerala, India. West Syriac liturgy was brought to India by the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Jerusalem, Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, in 1665; in the following decades the Malankara Rite emerged as the liturgy of the Malankara Church, one of the two churches that evolved from the split in the Saint Thomas Christian community in the 17th century. Today it is practiced by the various churches that descend from the Malankara Church, namely the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian Orthodox Church), the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, and the Malabar Independent Syrian Church.

Among these, the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and the Malabar Independent Syrian Church preserve the traditional West Syriac liturgy, while the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church follows a reformed liturgical tradition shaped partly by Anglican influences in the 19th century.

The West Syriac Rite developed out of the ancient Antiochene Rite, emerging in the 5th and 6th century with the adoption of Syriac, rather than Greek, as the liturgical language of the non-Chalcedonian Patriarchate of Antioch. The liturgy was further revised and expanded over the centuries as the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch emerged as a fully distinct church, reaching its "classical" form in the 12th century under Patriarch Michael the Syrian.

West Syriac liturgy was first introduced to India by the mission of Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Jerusalem, who arrived in 1665. Historically, not wanting to accept the historical reality of Syrian migration, which happened in 345, under the leadership of Bishop Joseph and the trader Thomas of Canna, a group of Indian Christians in the Church of the East accepted Nestorianism, centred in Persia, practiced a variant of the East Syriac Rite that is known as the Malabar Rite. However, a decline in communications between the Patriarchate of Antioch (which is the oldest and which claims paternal succession) and India led the Saint Thomas Christians to attempt to establish relations with other churches. As early as 1491, the Archdeacon of Malabar sent envoys to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch as part of an effort to receive a bishop for his bishopless province. In the end nothing came of the request, and the Patriarch of Antioch eventually sent a new bishop.

In 1653, a group of Saint Thomas Christians disaffected by Portuguese colonial rule and the drowning of delegate from the Patriarchate of Antioch (Ahatallah) joined Archdeacon Parambil Thoma and Anjilimoottil Ittythomman Kathanar (a priest from the Knanaya Christians), who gave courage to the Archdeacon, in vowing not to submit to Portuguese authority. This avowal, known as the Coonan Cross Oath, led to the formation of an independent Malankara Church with Thomas as its head. To affirm his consecration as bishop, Thomas sent requests to several churches including the Syriac Orthodox Church, the only church responded was the mother church. Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Abdulmasih I responded by sending Gregorios Abdal Jaleel to India in 1665, and the relationship between the Syriac Orthodox and Malankara Church got re-established. They follow the theology, Christology, and liturgy of Syrian Orthodox Church.

Adoption of West Syriac practice by the Malankara Church was gradual; in the early days of its independence the church was more interested in reversing the changes the Portuguese had imposed upon the Malabar Rite than in adopting a new liturgy. Indeed, among its first steps were to restore the usage of leavened bread and the Julian calendar. Under the influence of Gregorios, the church adopted West Syriac vestments, while twenty years later, West Syriac prelates introduced the West Syriac Liturgy of Saint James and the Antiochene rules concerning fasting, feast days, and prohibitions regarding the liturgy. Still, there was no systematized adoption of West Syriac practice for nearly one hundred years; in the meantime the church practiced a combination of West Syriac and Malabar Rite.

Formal steps towards adoption of the West Syriac Rite came in 1772, when bishops visiting from Antioch consecrated Mar Thoma VI as Mar Dionysius I and established a systematic church hierarchy. Amid visits by a church prelate in 1846 and the Patriarch himself in 1875, the church fully adopted West Syriac practice. Following the splits within the Malankara Church in the 19th century and its final breakup in the 20th century, the churches that developed from it have retained the Malankara Rite. Today the rite is essentially West Syriac in character with some local variations, which sometimes retain elements now archaic in the wider West Syriac tradition. For example, the Malankara Rite includes the observance of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts on weekdays during Great Lent and on the Friday of Passion Week. Since the 20th century, Syriac has largely been replaced as the liturgical language by Malayalam.

Before the arrival of West Syriac tradition, Malankara Nazranis were following East Syriac Tradition the influence of East Syriac tradition in liturgy and Malayalam language is evident. Words like Mar, Qurbana are of East Syriac tradition and the corresponding West Syriac words are Mor, Qurbono, etc. East Syriac words like Mar, Qurbana are still used in Malankara churches. Churches that still have the east Syriac tradition are the Syro-Malabar Church and the Chaldean Syrian Church.