One of my favorite memories growing up is Thanksgiving in the United States. An official national holiday in the United States, Thanksgiving remembers the shared autumn harvest feast between pilgrims and Native Americans on November 26, 1621. For most American families, they would gather at a family member’s house and share a large celebratory meal with a delicious, roasted turkey (typically 10-13 kg!). But I immediately noticed a difference in how my family celebrates Thanksgiving: we attend SyroMalabar Holy Qurbana.
For years, the Mar Thoma Sleeha Cathedral in Chicago celebrated a special Holy Qurbana, 10:00 AM every Thanksgiving. After our eparchy was established in Chicago in 2001, Bishop Mar Jacob Angadiath would always serve as the main celebrant for every Thanksgiving Qurbana.
This is uniquely and authentically SyroMalabar Catholic and American. There is nothing more American than Thanksgiving and there is nothing more true to the SyroMalabar Catholic faith than our liturgy. And it also represents why the SyroMalabar Church is thriving globally.
While there were always sizable communities (thousands of SyroMalabar Catholics) across the Gulf region, the SyroMalabar Church has continued west with even more communities across Europe, North America, and the Oceania (Australia, New Zealand). This eventually led to the establishment of the first SyroMalabar eparchy outside of India in Chicago (2001). And today, our now global church has eparchies in Australia, Canada, and Great Britain and an Apostolic Visitor for Europe (Mar Stephen Chirappanath, based in Rome). This has led to exciting developments on a new generation of the SyroMalabar Catholic leaders born outside of India, the Holy Qurbana being celebrated in Italian, German, French and other languages, and early fruits of evangelization where non-Indians have encountered Christ through the beauty, goodness, and truth found in our unique Eastern Catholic faith life.
But we also must be honest on unique challenges. There has been a generation of young SyroMalabar Catholics who have fallen away, some with deep frustration with the gap of cultural understanding between the first generation of emigrants and the youth. There is an over emphasis on providing the Holy Qurbana only in Malayalam, which is clearly against the very policy of the Universal Catholic Church (to offer liturgy according to the vernacular). There is an underinvestment of resources to provide official church and liturgical resources in languages outside of India (not all official SyroMalabar prayers have been translated). There is now a desperate need to build dedicated ministries, apostolate, initiatives, and lay institutes that can support the growth in the life of the SyroMalabar Church outside of India. And there has been a long-term problem with adequately trained lay leaders, many who’ve failed to fully understand our unique vocation as Eastern Catholics (which has led to misaligned priorities to ensure Malayalee culture preservation and unnecessary personal conflicts).
Being honest on these unique and complex needs will ensure we can properly discern God’s will for our Church, train the right leaders, and pursue the right path when it comes to a thriving Eastern Catholic Church. This requires a dedicated commitment to engage the rising generation of young SyroMalabar Catholics born in Europe, North America, and the Oceania and vocations from the same community. Recently in Australia, young SyroMalabar Catholics have organized a wide variety of leadership workshops, regional summits, and conferences. In Austria and Switzerland, Holy Qurbana is celebrated in German. In Great Britain, young people are actively contributing to the growing needs of their new eparchy. And in North America, young adult families are regularly attending the Holy Qurbana in English - which is the only Qurbana known for their young children.
What’s the path forward for the SyroMalabar Church outside of India?
1. Reform parish councils: to ensure that 50% of the parish council membership is below the age of 40 and that every council has gender parity (50% male, 50% female)
2. Establish a new official institute for the SyroMalabar Church outside of India: a dedicated body of priests, religious, and lay people which convenes and supports parish/mission center leaders who can work together to address common problems (Holy Qurbana resources in other languages, etc) and create fellowship to strengthen leaders.
3. Make the Holy Qurbana as available as possible: in every vernacular we need in the west - Italian, German, French and more.
All of these measures can lead to a more inclusive, dynamic, and thriving global SyroMalabar Church. And it requires the support and leadership of our six SyroMalabar Bishops outside of India.
Why should we care about this global reality? While our roots are in Kerala, we must remember both our rights and responsibilities as Eastern Catholics. Our growing global reality isn’t just a nice thing that’s happening, work is required to ensure we’re building an authentic and genuine life of the Church for a new generation that feels disconnected. But most importantly, we need to be responsive to our unique vocation as Saint Thomas Christians: to live a life of an encounter with the Risen Lord, just like our father-in-faith.
Abin Kuriakose, Chicago USA
Email : [email protected]
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