Martyrs of Malankara

T. M. Varghese, remembered as Malankara Varghese, was a member of the Managing Committee of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. A timber merchant, lay preacher, and steadfast defender of the Church, he named his business Malankara Timbers as an expression of his devotion to her.

On 2 December 2002, the Kerala High Court delivered its judgment concerning the Kochi, Kandanad East, Kandanad West, and Angamaly dioceses, affirming the legal standing of parish administration under the Church’s 1934 Constitution. In the days that followed, Varghese travelled throughout the Angamaly Diocese, publicly explaining and defending the judgment and the authority of the Catholicos. On 5 December 2002, only three days later, he was brutally murdered by Antiochian schismatic assailants near Perumbavoor.

His assassination is understood by his family to have been ordered by Baselios Thomas I, leader of the Patriarchal faction, with his personal secretary, Fr. Varghese Thekkekara, entrusted with planning the killing — on account of Varghese’s prominent role in defending the Orthodox Church and her legal rights.

Born on 9 April 1938, Thottappattu Uthup Kuriakose was a faithful member of Perumbavoor Bethel Suloko Orthodox Cathedral. On 31 August 1993, he was beaten to death at the Cathedral, struck about the head with wooden sticks by Antiochian schismatic assailants — a killing that arose from the same factional conflict over the Church’s independence that has claimed so many of her faithful.

Kuriako Yohannan, known to his parish as Onankunju, was born on 11 August 1951 at the Karavattu Mangalathu house in Ramamangalam Panchayat, Muvattupuzha Taluk, the youngest of the seven children of Kuriako and Annamma. Educated to the seventh standard at the Government High School, Ooramana, he remained unmarried and devoted himself to the affairs of his family and of the Church.

On 15 February 1976, Onankunju travelled with fellow parishioners of Kadamattom, in a convoy of three lorries, to Ernakulam to take part in the historic reception held for the newly enthroned Catholicos, His Holiness Baselios Marthoma Mathews I, and the four newly consecrated Metropolitans. Returning that night, as their lorry passed near Puthenkurishu and Mattakuzhy, members of the Patriarchal faction — who had earlier threatened the convoy with black flags and cries of menace — pelted the vehicle with bricks and stones. Struck in the head, Onankunju fell from the lorry to the road and died instantly, at the age of twenty-five.

He was buried with the full honours of the Church at the cemetery of Kadamattom St. George Orthodox Church, in the presence of Geevarghese Mar Osthathios and Joseph Mar Pachomios — representing His Holiness the Catholicos — together with numerous clergy and a vast gathering of the faithful. His death provoked such public outcry that the then Chief Minister of Kerala, C. Achutha Menon, publicly called upon both factions of the Malankara Church to end their costly and provocative demonstrations.

Cheppattu Puthenveettil Kochunnunni died amid the bitter jurisdictional struggle that followed the Patriarch of Antioch’s 1927 consecration of a rival bishop, Mikhael Mar Dionysius, set up to contest Vattasseril Mar Dionysius’s authority over the Malankara Church. Trading on his following in the region south of Kottayam, Mikhael Mar Dionysius sought to force his way into parish churches loyal to the Vattasseril faction, and it was in such a confrontation — at Cheppad St. George Orthodox Church, on the 27th of Chingam, 1103 M.E. (1927) — that Kochunnunni was fatally struck.

By several eyewitness accounts, the clash broke out when Mikhael Mar Dionysius entered the church and the rival factions grappled over his episcopal staff, which broke apart in the struggle. In the melee that followed, Kochunnunni — nephew of Fr. Vanchiyil, of the Cheppad Vanchiyil family — was struck and died of his injuries within two or three days. The affair became the subject of a criminal case, in which Mikhael Mar Dionysius himself was named, though it was later withdrawn at Vattasseril Mar Dionysius’s intervention. Kochunnunni was buried in the cemetery of Cheppad Church.

The episode is independently attested in several contemporary sources — the diaries of Vattasseril Mar Dionysius and of Fr. Paret, the memoir of Cheppad Vanchiyil Philipose Rambachan, and the recollection of a friend of Kochunnunni’s.

Chalil Korah was trustee of Mulanthuruthy St. Thomas Orthodox Cathedral and a member of the Malankara Church Managing Committee, remembered also as a social reformer instrumental in the development of modern Mulanthuruthy. In 1902, during the reorganisation of the Malankara Church into dioceses, he served as one of four administrators of Vettickal Dayara, overseeing its affairs under the authority of the Patriarch alongside Kadavil Mor Athanasius Metropolitan and the other appointed administrators.

In December 1921, amid the deepening factional dispute between the Catholicos and Patriarchal parties, Korah was set upon without provocation in the church parsonage at Mulanthuruthy, together with the parish vicar, Ponodathu Mathai Kathanar. He died instantly of his injuries.

Ponodathu Mathai Kathanar, vicar of Mulanthuruthy St. Thomas Orthodox Cathedral and grandson of Fr. Thoppil Cheriyathu Kathanar — who had also served the parish as vicar — held office in the years surrounding the historic Mulanthuruthy Synod of 1876. In his native place he was remembered as the sole disciple of St. Gregorios of Parumala.

In December 1921, amid the bitter dispute between the Catholicos and Patriarchal factions, Mathai Kathanar was attacked without provocation in the church parsonage, together with the parish trustee, Chalil Korah, who died instantly. Rendered unconscious by the assault, Mathai Kathanar succumbed to his injuries on 23 December 1921 and was buried the following day at Mulanthuruthy St. Thomas Orthodox Cathedral — the only priest to have given his life in this long conflict. His descendants include Fr. Dr. Jossi Jacob, Principal of the Orthodox Seminary at Nagpur, and Ebin Mathai, trustee of Mulanthuruthy St. Thomas Orthodox Cathedral.

Varkey Varghese, affectionately known as Aanapappy, was a schoolteacher of uncommon stature and strength, trained in traditional martial arts and deeply devoted to the Malankara Church. Around the turn of 1912, as the schismatic Patriarchal faction escalated its threats against Vattasseril Geevarghese Mar Dionysius — the Great Luminary of the Malankara Church, then travelling the parishes of Malankara to proclaim the truth of the Church’s autocephaly against the claims of the Patriarch — the elders of Thiruvalla parish appointed Aanapappy chief among the bodyguards charged with St. Dionysius’s protection.

Unable to defeat the Metropolitan’s bodyguard by open confrontation, his enemies resolved that Aanapappy himself must first be removed. Schismatic goons hid their weapons in the sand at the riverside bathing place he frequented near the Old Seminary at Kottayam, and on 31 March 1912 fell upon him there, hacking him to death.

Though Aanapappy was martyred, the conspirators were never able to carry out their design against St. Dionysius himself — and it is in no small part to Aanapappy’s sacrifice that the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church owes the survival of her autocephaly to this day. He was buried at the Cheriapally cemetery in Kottayam, where a memorial stone in his honour has since been raised.