Beginning of Reformation
By this time, Deacon Mathen's uncle (father's brother) Abraham Malpan has already began reformation in the church and made the following changes:
- On Sunday August 27, 1837, Kurbana (Holy Communion) was conducted in Malayalam, the language of the people.
- Every year on October 5, there was a church festival at Maramon, connected with a certain saint of the church. A wooden image of Saint Muthappen was taken around in procession and people used to offer prayers and offerings to it. In 1837, Abraham Malpan took the image and threw it into a well saying, "Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?" (Isaiah 8:19). Thus the prayers to the saints and prayers for the dead were removed from the liturgy.
- Changes were made in the various prayers in the prayer books incorporating the divine light received through the study of the Bible.
The use of the revised liturgy and the changes Abraham Malpan brought about in practices offended Cheppad Philipose Mar Dionysius (Mar Thoma XII), who threatened him with excommunication. But Abraham Malpan informed him that if excommunicated, he would not come begging to revoke it. Marthoma XII, did not excommunicate him, but refused priesthood to the deacons trained under him.
Read more about this topic: Mathews Mar Athanasius Metropolitan
Famous quotes containing the words beginning of, beginning and/or reformation:
“The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal to the senses with abstractions.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“Go on then in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword; shew that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)