The Knanaya Diocese preserves the heritage of the endogamous Knanaya community, whose descendants continue to serve and worship in other Orthodox dioceses.
The institutions listed below are not included in the counts above, as they are semi-autonomous; this is so as to avoid any confusion for the time being.
The Knanaya tradition holds that in the year 345 a Middle Eastern merchant, Thomas of Cana, led seventy-two Jewish-Christian families from Edessa (modern Urfa) to the coast of Malankara, present-day Kerala. Welcomed by the ruler Cheraman Perumal, this endogamous community settled at Kodungalloor with its own priests, deacons and a leader, Uraha Mar Ouseph (Bishop Joseph of Edessa), and preserved its distinctive cultural, linguistic and West Syriac liturgical traditions over many centuries.
In 1882, eleven leaders and priests of the community formed the Malankara Syrian Knanaya Committee to safeguard its identity, heritage and endogamous traditions. On 31 August 1910, Patriarch Mor Ignatius ʿAbded Aloho ordained Fr. Geevarghese Edavazhickal as the first Knanaya Bishop, with the name Mar Severios, and the diocese was established with nine initial parishes organised by the Committee.
The reformation movement then active throughout Malankara also reached the community. At Kottayam, Kallissery and Ranni an estimated thirty to forty per cent of the Knanaya joined the reformist faction, and their descendants have since abandoned endogamy. At Kottayam Valiyapally the movement was resolutely opposed by Fr. Philipose Edavazhickal.
The community’s own formal constitution, the Malankara Syrian Knanaya Constitution, was adopted in 1912 and given legal force in 1918. It was recast as a comprehensive framework in 1952 and issued in its second edition from the Edessa Press, Kottayam, in 1959. By it the diocese orders its internal and temporal affairs, subject to the canons of the Church and the law of the land.
In Moran Mar Basselios Catholicos v. Thukalan Paulo Avira (1959), the Supreme Court of India held that the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch over the Malankara Church is one of general spiritual supervision and does not extend to its temporal affairs or properties. Following the second schism of 1974, the diocese was at first constituted a titular see, since no Knanaya clergy or churches affiliated with it affirmed the 1934 Constitution. Its seat is Chingavanam St. Ephrem Seminary, Kottayam.
After the Supreme Court’s judgment in P.M.A. Metropolitan v. Moran Mar Marthoma (1995), which upheld the 1934 Constitution as the governing instrument of the Malankara Church, the Church accepted the diocese as a semi-autonomous community, standing within the Church and under its Constitution while administering its internal affairs according to the Malankara Syrian Knanaya Constitution. That Constitution underwent its latest major revision in 2003.
In K.S. Varghese v. St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s Syrian Orthodox Church (2017), the Supreme Court declared the 1934 Constitution binding upon the parishes of the Malankara Church, leaving the distinctive position of the Knanaya Diocese undisturbed.
A decisive chapter opened in 2024. On 17 May 2024, Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II issued an order suspending Metropolitan Kuriakose Mar Severios from his administrative and episcopal functions, citing, among other grounds, the reception accorded to the Catholicos of the Malankara Orthodox Church and the conduct of services by Malankara Orthodox priests in Knanaya parishes in the United States. The community regarded the order as unwarranted under its own Constitution, and on 18 May 2024 the Kottayam Munsiff Court stayed its operation.
On 21 May 2024 the Knanaya Association, the supreme governing body of the community, convened at Chingavanam and rejected the order as contrary to the Malankara Syrian Knanaya Constitution, affirming its resolve to maintain open and cordial relations with the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. The faithful gathered at the headquarters in solidarity with their Metropolitan, and the flag of the Patriarchate of Antioch, which had flown there for decades, was lowered. It has not been raised since, and the community no longer regards itself as subject to the Syriac Orthodox Church or the Patriarchal faction. It is likewise reported that, in a number of parishes across Malankara, the inscription “Knanaya Jacobite” on church signboards has been replaced by “Knanaya Syrian”.
In 2025 the High Court of Kerala upheld the injunction restraining the suspension of the Knanaya Metropolitan by the Patriarch of Antioch, reaffirming that the Patriarch’s office is spiritual and not temporal, and that the community may govern itself under its own Constitution.
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, under Catholicos Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, has received the Knanaya community in a welcoming and fraternal spirit, recognising its administrative autonomy and distinct constitution. The Church at present recognises and supports H.G. Kuriakose Mar Severios as the Metropolitan of the Knanaya Diocese, together with Mr. T.O. Abraham Thottathil, Secretary of the Knanaya Diocese. Knanaya priests also serve in other dioceses, and thousands of Knanaya-descendant faithful, chiefly in places without Knanaya churches, are found mainly in the dioceses of Kottayam and Mavelikara.
7 districts, listed alphabetically.