Catholicos of India

Catholicos Of India

(catholicos of jacobatic Syrian church) Catholicos of India(jacobates) is an ecclesiastical office in the Syriac Orthodox Church, the head of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church in Kerala, India. Its holder bears the titles of Catholicos and Maphrian, and functions at an ecclesiastical rank second to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. The jurisdiction of the Syriac Orthodox Catholicos is limited to India and Indian diaspora, although he is often invited to preside over Syriac Orthodox functions abroad. The current Catholicos of India is Catholicos Baselios Thomas I, who was consecrated in 2002.

The position was created in the 2002, amid a series of splits caused by Syriac Orthodox communion that divided the community into Jacobite Syrian and Malankara Orthodox Syrian factions. It was instituted to provide a regional head for Jacobite Syrian Church, the faction that remained closely aligned with the Patriarch of Antioch.