A Missed
Opportunity
Liturgical celebration
took a definite shape in
different great Metropolitan
centres of early Christianity
towards end of the fifth
century or early the sixth
century. The Malabar coast of
Thomas Christians could not
become one such great
Metropolis as far as Liturgy
was concerned, even though
this Church had an apostolic
origin. The East Syrian Rite
and the Syria language must
have become the heritage of
St. Thomas Christians at a
very early stage, namely,
before the codification of the
liturgical prayers. Fr. Placid
writes: ”Any way, it may be
supposed, it seems, that the
only liturgical rite (the
codified form of sacred
functions known by the term
liturgical rite) practiced by
St. Thomas Christians from the
early days was East Syrian.
The codification of the sacred
functions into liturgical
rites as we know them today
began towards the end of the V
or VI century, if not later ”
(Fr. Placid, The Thomas
Christians,p.73-74).
Regarding the celebration
of the Liturgy and the
language used for the same
until the contact with the
Persian Church there is no
evidence. There are only
conjectures. With all
probability the apostle might
have celebrated the divine
functions in the Indian
cultural background. He did
not come with a codified form
of Liturgy or other
sacraments. His successors
could not have arrived at a
codified form of Liturgical
celebrations before the
arrival of the East Syrian
missionaries. Many scholars
ask an important question,
namely, “If they had evolved a
liturgical rite of their own
would they give it up in
favour of the East Syrian?” I
believe that it was too early
for the St. Thomas Christians
to codify a liturgical form
before the East Syrian
missionaries came. It was a
missed opportunity for Malabar
to become a great liturgical
centre. In fact the great
metropolitan or patriarchal
churches became the centres of
a particular liturgical rite.
In these patriarchal sees an
order of worship was fixed and
this.9 10 order sooner or
later became obligatory within
the entire sphere of influence
of the see in question (See
Josef A. Jungman, The Early
Liturgy,p.202). |
