Page:Lesser Eastern Churches.djvu/388

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366
THE LESSER EASTERN CHURCHES

was carried on after his death, and was only appeased by the Rajah of Travancore.[1] This is one example of what has happened almost incessantly. Malabar Church history, except for the Uniates, is one long story of rival Metropolitans, the interference of various foreign prelates, schismatical ordinations,[2] endless quarrels and appeals to the pagan secular power. At the end of the 18th century the power of Holland begins to give way before that of England. The second Mysore war (1790-1792) gave us undisputed supremacy in Southern India; the Rajahs of Cochin and Travancore (who divide the Malabar coast) became dependent on England in 1795. So begin relations between Anglicans and the schismatical Malabar Christians. In 1806 Dr. Claudius Buchanan visited their Metropolitan Dionysius and proposed a union between the two Churches. But the Indians seem to have known something about the Church of England, for they said that they could not acknowledge Anglican orders.[3] It really is hard on Anglicans that no one, not even this poor little sect in India, will accept their orders. However, in spite of this, relations were not at first unfriendly. Anglicans were, of course, delighted to find an ancient Church which is not in union with Rome; the Malabar clergy had every reason to be on good terms with these rich and powerful foreigners who were now masters of the country. As usual, the Anglicans professed the greatest possible respect for the ancient Syrian Church in India, and loudly declared their intention not to proselytize. They only wanted to educate and help. So they printed and distributed Syriac Bibles; they built a college for the Christian natives at Kottayam near Cochin. But soon dissension began. It was the Church Missionary Society which undertook this work, and its missionaries were, even for that Society, very Low Church indeed. They taught justification by faith alone and an un-sacramental theology; they never ceased pouring scorn on the Malabar holy liturgy, which they would call a Mass — apparently as a term of abuse.[4] One of their ministers, when invited to

  1. Howard: op. cit. 55.
  2. Schismatical among themselves.
  3. Howard: op. cit. 57.
  4. Howard: op. cit. p. 94. "Mass" is, of course, a totally wrong name for any liturgy but those of the Latin rites.