Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/494

SYRIAN CHRISTIAN Pope was, however, convinced of the spiritual adherence of the native clergy and congregation to Rome. In these circumstances, it was thought advisable to give the native clergy a fair trial in the matter of local supremacy. Bishops Medlycott and Lavigne, S.J., who were the Vicars Apostolic of Trichūr and Kottayam, were therefore withdrawn, and, in 1896, three native Syrian priests. Father John Menacheri, Father Aloysius Pareparambil, and Father Mathew Mackil, were consecrated by the Papal Delegate as the Vicars Apostolic of Trichūr, Ernākulam, and Chenganacheri.

The monopoly of the Indian missions claimed by the Portuguese, and the frequent disputes which disturbed the peace of the Malabar church, were ended in 1886 by the Concordat entered into between Pope Leo XIII and the King of Portugal. The Archbishop of Goa was by this recognised as the Patriarch of the East Indies with the Bishop of Cochin as a suffragan, whose diocese in the Cochin State is confined to the seaboard tāluk of Cochin. The rest of the Latin Catholics of this State, except a small section in the Chittūr tāluk under the Bishop of Coimbatore, are under the Archbishop of Varapuzha.

Since the revolt of the Syrians at the Coonen Cross in 1653, the Jacobite Syrians have been governed by native Bishops consecrated by Bishops sent by the Patriarch of Antioch, or at least always received and recognised as such. In exigent circumstances, the native Bishops themselves, before their death, consecrated their successors by the imposition of hands. Immediately after the defection, they chose Archdeacon Thomas as their spiritual leader. He was thus the first Metran or native Bishop, having been formally ordained after twelve years of independent rule by Mar Gregory from Antioch, with whose name the revival of Jacobitism in