Autonomy
In response these pleas, the Chaldean Patriarch Joseph Audo sent a request to Pope Pius IX for the Syro-Malabar Catholics to be placed under his authority. Without waiting for a reply, he dispatched Elias Mellus, Bishop of Aqrah, to India in 1874. Mellus had substantial success convincing Syro-Malabar Catholics in Thrissur to recognize him as their bishop. By 1877 24,000 followers had joined his group, based in Our Lady of Dolours Church (now Mart Mariam Cathedral) in the parish of Thrissur. In response the Pope dispatched Latin Catholic leaders to rein in Mellus, who was sent back to Mesopotamia in 1882. By then, however, he had established the infrastructure for an independent church.
Many of Mellus' followers returned to the Syro-Malabar Church. About 8,000, however, maintained their demand for autonomy, and took their requests for an independent bishop to non-Catholic churches. In 1904 they made one such request to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but were declined. They subsequently made an equivalent request to Shimun XXI Benyamin, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East in Qochanis. Simon consented, and dispatched Abimelek to serve as their metropolitan bishop. Abimelek introduced Nestorian dogma and East Syrian liturgy to the Thrissur church. These reforms caused more followers to break away and rejoin the Syro-Malabar Church, but the Thrissur church survived.
In 1964, during the reign of Mar Shimun XXIII Eshai, a dispute over hereditary succession and church calendars caused the Metropolitan of the Church of the East in India to break away. However, in 1995 Eshai's successor, Mar Dinkha IV was able to heal the rift, and the Chaldean Syrian Church returned to his jurisdiction. It now constitutes one of the four Archbishoprics of the Assyrian Church of the East. Its followers number around 15,000. The present Metropolitan, Mar Aprem Mooken (ordained in 1968), is headquartered in Thrissur City and is a noted author. His seat is the Marth Mariam Valiyapalli 10°31′6″N 76°13′2″E / 10.51833°N 76.21722°E / 10.51833; 76.21722. The Chaldean Syrian Higher Secondary School is also affiliated with the church.
Read more about this topic: Chaldean Syrian Church
Famous quotes containing the word autonomy:
“Unless we include a job as part of every citizen’s right to autonomy and personal fulfillment, women will continue to be vulnerable to someone else’s idea of what “need” is.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“I’m tired of earning my own living, paying my own bills, raising my own child. I’m tired of the sound of my own voice crying out in the wilderness, raving on about equality and justice and a new social order.... Self-sufficiency is exhausting. Autonomy is lonely. It’s so hard to be a feminist if you are a woman.”
—Jane O’Reilly, U.S. feminist and humorist. The Girl I Left Behind, ch. 7 (1980)
“Autonomy means women defining themselves and the values by which they will live, and beginning to think of institutional arrangements which will order their environment in line with their needs.... Autonomy means moving out from a world in which one is born to marginality, to a past without meaning, and a future determined by others—into a world in which one acts and chooses, aware of a meaningful past and free to shape one’s future.”
—Gerda Lerner (b. 1920)