Catholicos of India (title)

Catholicos of India is an ecclesiastical office in the Syriac Orthodox Church, the head of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church in Kerala, India. He is the Catholicos/Maphrian of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church an autonomous body within the Syriac Orthodox Church, and functions at an ecclesiastical rank second to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. The jurisdiction of the Syriac Orthodox Catholicos is limited to India and Indian diaspora, although he is often invited to preside over Syriac Orthodox functions abroad. The current Catholicos of India is Catholicos Baselios Thomas I, who was consecrated in 2002.

The position was created in the 20th century, amid a series of splits within the local Malankara Church and the broader Syriac Orthodox communion that divided the community into rival Jacobite Syrian and Indian Orthodox factions. It was instituted to provide a regional head for Jacobite Syrian Church, the faction that remained closely aligned with the Patriarch of Antioch.

Note: The title Catholicos of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church in India, often referred as Catholicos of India, held by the head of Malankara Archdiocese of Syriac Orthodox Church, is not to be confused with the title 'Catholicos of the East' held by the supreme head of the autocephalous Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.

The word is a transliteration of the Greek καθολικός, pl. καθολικοί, meaning concerning the whole, universal or general. It was a title that existed in the Roman Empire where Government representative who was in charge of a large area was called ‘Catholicos’. The Churches later started to use this term for their Chief Bishops.

‘Maphriyono’ (Maphrian) is derived from the Syriac word 'afri', “to make fruitful’, or "one who gives fecundity". This title be used exclusively for the head of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the East. From the mid 13th century onwards, a few occupants of the Maphrianate were referred also as ‘Catholicos’, but the title never came into extensive usage.

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