Our Faith


The following is a synopsis of the history and faith of our church, the comprehensive version of which can be found detailed at www.mosc.in

History
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church was founded by St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, who came to India in A.D. 52, following which around the fourth century, the Indian Church entered into a close relationship with the Persian or East Syrian Church. From the Persians, the Indians inherited East Syrian language and liturgies and gradually came to be known as Syrian Christians. In the seventeenth century the Church came into a relationship with the Antiochene Church as a result of this relationship the Church received West Syrian liturgies and practices. The Church then entered into a new phase of its history by the establishment of the Catholicate in 1912. At present the Church uses the West Syrian liturgy, with the faith of the Church being that which was established by the three Ecumenical Councils of Nicea (A.D. 325), Constantinople (A.D. 381) and Ephesus (A.D. 431). The Church is in communion with the other Oriental Orthodox Churches namely, Antiochene, Alexandrian, Armenian, Eritrean and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches and maintains a good ecumenical relationship with the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. At present the Church has over 2 million faithful with 24 dioceses all over the world.

Faith
Our faith is not an opinion, but is an affirmation of what ultimate reality is - dependable, trustable reality. We do not put our trust either in just the ancient character of our Church or just in any dogmas or doctrines. Our trust is in the One True God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, eternal, self-existent, indivisible, infinite, incomprehensible, glorious, holy, not created or owing his being to something else, all-sovereign, Creator of the whole universe.

About the Father, we know only what the Son and the Spirit have revealed to us, and still continue to reveal. We believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became a human being and rules over the universe. All power in heaven (the aspects of the universe now not open to our senses) and on earth (the universe in all its tangible, sensible aspects) is given to Jesus Christ the God-Man. For us the Holy Spirit is Life-giver, Sanctifier and Perfecter. We do think in terms of sin and grace, but the central category in our understanding of salvation is the life-giving Spirit. It is He who effects forgiveness of sins, removes barriers between human beings as well as between them and God, gives life, makes people more holy and God-like, and draws us to perfection. While we do speak about these operations of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are not three Gods, but one God, we know next to nothing about His being as Triune God. It is important for us to confess the incomprehensibility of God. He is not to be discussed or explained, but to be worshipped and adored and acknowledged as Lord of all.

We believe in the Church, just as all who acknowledge the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed do. The Church is the great consequence of the Son of God becoming flesh, but the Church is not simply a community believers gathered together. It is a reality which spans heaven and earth, the risen Christ himself as chief cornerstone, the Apostles and Prophets as foundation, and all who belong to Christ from Adam to the second coming being members of this one, holy Catholic apostolic community

We remember at every Eucharist the departed as a whole, and especially the Apostles, great teachers, and spiritual leaders who have helped build up and protect the Church from error and deviation. It is not a law that we have to ask the Saints to intercede for us, but we do it with great joy and genuine appreciation of their past and present role in the one Church of Jesus Christ. Of the great Saints in the Church, the first (after Christ) and unique place goes to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for she was the first to hear the Gospel of the Incarnation of our Lord from the Archangel, and to receive Him, on behalf of all of us human beings, into her womb. She is the mother of Christ, and thus mother of all the faithful who are joint-heirs with Christ. But she is also the Theotokos, the Godbearer, for the one whom she bore in her womb was truly God himself.

We hold the Bible in very high regard as the Gospel is the Word of Life, the proclamation of life and salvation to the world.We revere the Scriptures as the inspired Word of God, and all our prayers, as well as the services of the mysteries of the Church are saturated with Biblical reference, and always completed by the public reading of the Scriptures. Icons are also important for us as they mediate to the worshipping community the presence of the Saints, and of the saving events of our Lord’s incarnate life. We do not make images of the unseen God, but we consecrate icons to mediate to us the God-bearing persons and events which have been actually manifested to our senses. Tradition is not something old, static, and life-less for us; it is the life of the Church as a counting body, with the presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit in it. It is the Spirit that makes the Tradition alive and it bears witness to Christ; it also moves forward in expectation of the final fulfillment. Hence Tradition for us is dynamic. It includes knowledge of Christ, the teaching of the Apostles, the doctrine of the Saints and fathers, the practices of worship developed by the community of faith, its way of doing things and practicing love. Scripture is part of this tradition. Tradition is not just a body of knowledge, but a way of life and worship and service.

Our worship as a community is the centre of our life, not our own personal articulations of faith. It is there that the Church, united with Christ, participates in Christ’s self-offering for the world. Our daily life flows out from worship and has to be a life of love and compassion, caring for the needy, struggling against evil, serving the poor. Our hope is focused on Christ’s coming again. It is only in that coming that evil would be separated from good, death from life, so that the good can triumph eternally and grow eternally also. In that coming there will be a reconstitution of the universe; all things shall be made new; evil shall be banished. Death and darkness would be finally overcome; light and life and love will triumph. It is our task to bear witness to this final reality, while living it out here and now, as much as we can, beset as we are by sin and frailty.