Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) set out the understanding between you and Malankara Map for your use of this site — the globe, the directory, the timeline, our search tools, and every page connected to them (together, the “Service”). By visiting or using the Service in any way, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which forms part of this agreement. If any of this doesn’t sit right with you, we simply ask that you step away from the Service.

Malankara Map is an independent, volunteer-run reference project — an interactive directory of the parishes, chapels, cathedrals, monasteries, and other institutions of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, paired with a historical timeline and a handful of practical tools, including a nearest-parish locator and a Qurbana request form. It is offered to the public entirely free of charge.

This website is not affiliated with the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, or with any other church, institution, or platform. It is an independent effort, undertaken out of devotion to this history and community, and should not be mistaken for an official publication of any diocese, Catholicate, or ecclesiastical authority.

The Service is meant for a general audience and isn’t directed at children. By using it, you confirm that you are doing so in a manner consistent with these Terms and the laws that apply to you. If you choose to make a donation, you additionally confirm that you are of legal age to enter into a binding financial transaction wherever you reside.

We ask that you use the Service thoughtfully and lawfully, and in a way that doesn’t crowd out anyone else’s enjoyment of it. Specifically, we ask that you not:

• Scrape, harvest, or systematically extract the directory at scale — light, incidental use of the site as intended is, of course, always welcome.
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the Service, its underlying infrastructure, or any connected system.
• Interfere with the Service's operation — through excessive automated requests, denial-of-service attempts, or malicious code.
• Submit false, misleading, defamatory, or abusive content through any form on the Service, including the Qurbana request form or a correction submission.
• Use the Service in a way that breaks applicable local, national, or international law.

When the Service allows you to send us something — a Qurbana request, a correction to a parish record, or a note of your own — we take you at your word that it is accurate. In sharing it, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce, and fold that information into the Service for the purpose you intended it (incorporating a factual correction into the directory, for instance).

We reserve the right to decline, edit, or remove any submission at our discretion — for reasons of accuracy, tone, relevance, or length.

We have taken real care in compiling and verifying what appears across the directory, timeline, and related pages, drawing on the sources credited elsewhere on the Service. Still, a project of this scope — thousands of locations, spanning centuries and jurisdictions — will inevitably contain a gap here or an outdated detail there, as parishes are founded, merged, renamed, or closed over time. Please treat the Service as a work of historical and reference interest rather than a live, official record of any parish's current status. If something looks off, we would genuinely welcome a correction through the form provided.

You are welcome to make a voluntary donation to help sustain and grow the Service. Payments are handled entirely by a trusted third-party processor, and making a donation means you also agree to that processor’s own terms — we never see or hold your full card details ourselves. Donations are generally final, except where the law requires otherwise or we determine, at our discretion, that a clear error occurred (an accidental duplicate charge, say). Beyond the general upkeep and development of the Service, we do not promise any particular use of donated funds unless we say so plainly at the time of giving.

Malankara Map — including its design, layout, original writing, and the particular selection, arrangement, and presentation of its directory data — is our work, and we hold full copyright over all information published on this website, except where a specific outside source is credited. Historical facts themselves belong to no one, but the manner in which we have gathered, organised, and presented them here does.

You are always welcome to link to the Service, and to quote brief excerpts for commentary, education, or research, with fair attribution. What we ask is that you not reproduce the directory, timeline, or globe wholesale, or present it as your own work, without our written permission first.

The Service draws on a small number of outside tools — among them Google My Maps, Google's geocoding infrastructure, Google Forms, and a third-party payment processor — each described more fully in our Privacy Policy. We do not control these providers and cannot answer for their content, accuracy, availability, or practices. Wherever you step onto a third-party service, that service's own terms take over.

The Service is offered exactly as it stands, and as it happens to be available, without warranties of any kind — express, implied, or otherwise. That includes any implied assurance of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or accuracy. We cannot promise the Service will always be free of interruption or error, or that any particular parish record, location, or historical detail is fully current or complete.

To the fullest extent the law allows, Malankara Map, its contributors, and its directors will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, use, goodwill, or other intangible loss arising from your access to, use of, or inability to use the Service — including reliance on any directory listing, historical detail, or location result — even where we have been made aware such damages were possible. Some jurisdictions do not allow limitations of this kind, in which case they may not apply to you.

In using the Service, you agree to hold Malankara Map and its contributors harmless from any claim, demand, loss, or expense — including reasonable legal fees — arising from your use of the Service, your breach of these Terms, or your infringement of someone else’s rights, including anything you submit through the Service.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Service is operated, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where mandatory consumer-protection law where you live provides otherwise. Any dispute relating to these Terms or the Service falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts of that jurisdiction, unless applicable law requires otherwise.

We may update these Terms from time to time, to reflect changes to the Service or to applicable law. Where a change is material, we will make a reasonable effort to let you know before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service afterward means you accept the revised Terms. The date at the top of this page always reflects the most recent revision.

We reserve the right to suspend or restrict access to all or part of the Service, without prior notice, for conduct we believe breaches these Terms, harms other visitors, or exposes us or others to liability. Since browsing the directory does not generally require an account, this most often applies to automated or abusive access patterns, or to misuse of the submission and donation features.

Questions about these Terms are always welcome — write to us at malankaramap@gmail.com and we will respond as promptly as we are able. You can also find us on Instagram at @malankaramap.