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Anonymous said... When you guys are going to buy a new curtain for the church , as you torn the curtain?
The syro malabar voice is behind this 'curtain torturing' 
Syro Malabar Voice said...Hello Anoni, we tore our curtain sheela centuries ago. When the Portuguese came they showed us what we call the "shaddy" or "jatty" or "brief". We liked it better than the sheela. Now we know some backward people from South Kerala,like you, Bishop and Thundathil, still think sheela is the best thing in the world. That is because you people still live in the sixteenth century and do not know how comfortable Jatty is.
We sincerely believe the curtain was an unauthorized, and hence illegal thing to be hanging in the church. We certainly empathize with the person who did it. Jesus himself said something to the effect that if something causes you scandal, cut it out. The curtain was a flagrant waste of over $26,000 of our hard earned money. We believe every true believer has the right, no duty, to stand up for their faith. Even to die for it, like many do.
Having said this, it is pure rumor-mongering to accuse voice being behind the "curtain torturing". Not that we did not want to, but like so many hundreds of our Northern Kerala sissy brothers , we didn't have the guts.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
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Please read:
(re: the CHRISTIAN origin of the Saint Thomas Syrian Cross)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_crosses_of_Kerala
The small cross is called St. Thomas cross or Nasrani Menorah or Syrian Cross. These crosses are found at St. Thomas Mount, Chennai (Madras), Kottayam [ 2 nos ], Kadamattam, Muttuchira, Kothanalloor, Alangad, etc. This has been venerated by all St. Thomas Christians from ancient times and treated as particularly sacred and kept inside the church. [3]
The crosses found at St. Thomas Mount and Kottayam has inscriptions in Pahlavi and Syriac. Dr. Burnell, the previous Archeological Director of India translated the inscriptions as follows:
"In punishment by the cross (was) the suffering of this one He who is the true Christ, and God above and Guide ever pure." [4]
Dr. Burnell translation's of inscription in small cross in Kottayam is as follows:
"Let me not glory except in the cross of our Lourd Jesus Christ." (Syriac translation)
"Who is the true Messiah, and God above, and Holy Ghost." (Pahlavi translation)[4]
Prof. F.C. Burkitt and C.P.T. Winckworth, the then reader of Assyriology in the University of Cambridge studied the inscriptions and produced a translation. This has been discussed at the International Congress of Orientalists held at Oxford in 1925.
The interpretation is as follows:
"My Lord Christ, have mercy up on Afras son of Chaharbukht the Syrian, who cut this (or, who caused this to be cut)." [5]
This cross has also been found during excavations in 1912 at Anuradhapura, one time capital of Sri Lanka [ 2 nos ][6] and in Sirkap, Pakistan during a filed search in 1935.[7]
Paleographers are in agreement that the style used in lettering in the crosses found in St. Thomas Mount and Kottayam are of 7th or 8th century.[8]Carbon dating also proves that the oldest of these crosses are from a period of 7th or 8th century.
The St. Thomas crosses at Kadamattam, Muttuchira, Kothanalloor and Alangad are said to be of same or postdate period.
It is certain that till the Synod of Diamper ie, 1599, these Crosses were venerated in the Churches of Saint Thomas Christians.
Antonio Gouvea in the Sixteenth century work, " Jornada" states that the old churches of this community were full of crosses of the type discovered from S.Thome ( Mylapore).[8].
He also states that veneration of the cross is an old custom in Malabar. "Jornada" is the oldest known written document which calls the cross as St. Thomas Cross.
The original word used is “ Cruz de Sam Thome “ meaning Cross of St. Thomas.
Interestingly, Gouvea writes about the veneration of the Cross at Cranganore mentioning it as "Cross of Christians". He also writes about the tradition that this "Cross of Christians" was placed at Cranganore by St. Thomas the Apostle. We do not have any trace of this "Cross of Cranganore". There is a probability that the "Cross of Christians" at Cranganore acted as the archaic model for all the other crosses erected in different parts of India and outside. Nothing can be conclusively said for want of further evidences.
Antonio Gouvea states that only the Prelates could bless the Cross. The inscription in the cross could be referring to the Prelates who consecrated or preserved or cut these crosses.
This would mean that these Crosses were abandoned only after the Syond of Diamper. The St. Thomas Cross discovered from Goa has a Portuguese inscription in the foot meaning “ that which belong to St. Thomas, 1642”, which shows that when the Portuguese got the cross in 1642, it was an important object of veneration.
It is probable that the Crosses were abandoned or destroyed against the background of heightened tensions between St. Thomas Christians and the Portuguese, which became acute by the Coonan Cross Oath of 1653. In the process of latinization, Crucifix, which has better visual impact began to take precedence over the Cross of St. Thomas, as the latter was considered as a remnant of the past links of heresy.
These Crosses might have got destroyed in all other places except Mylapore, where it was specially revered as a miraculous Cross because of sweating of blood. Other Crosses of Malabar and other places , to which no such miraculous powers was attached were destroyed by passage of time.[9] Among the non Catholic faction of St. Thomas Christians, the Antiochene Cross took the place of St. Thomas cross.
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