Setting in the 1970s

Though the title Throne / See of St. Thomas has always been a part of the native repository of the Malankara Church (as will be seen shortly), it has been heavily emphasized in recent decades as one of the core gnorisma (Gr. token of recognition) signifying the Catholicate of the East — all due to an ugly affair in the third quarter of the twentieth-century.

After the reunion of the Malankara Church with the dissident faction in 1958, following the verdict of the Apex Court in favor of the former, matters appeared to move pretty smoothly. Catholicose Geevarghese II passed away after a couple of years, and Patriarch Yakub III arrived in Malankara, to preside over the consecration ceremony of Cath. Augen I. The latter was joyful to witness the peace and stated during the function how the "Throne of St. Thomas" cannot be separated from that of St. Peter, and one cannot love one to the exclusion of the other. Nevertheless, by the late 1960s, internal issues arose, primarily between the clergy of both united factions.

On 27th June 1970, Cath. Augen received a startling kalpana from Pat. Yakub: the former should not use the title [On] the Throne of St. Thomas, because not only is it unhistorical and never used by the previous Catholicoi and Maphrians of the East, Apostle Thomas couldn't have established a Throne for "he was not a priest".

In your letter that we have received a few days ago, I was very much surprised to read the words: “The Throne of Saint Thomas, the Apostle. Firstly, since the establishment of the Catholicate in the fourth century, none of the Catholicoi or the Maphrians ever used this title. Secondly, Saint Thomas the Apostle had never founded any Throne to be called ‘Throne of Saint Thomas the Apostle’, for he was not a priest as it is evident from the Gospel of Saint John 20:21-24. As he was not a priest, how did he become a high priest? As he was not a high priest, how could he found a throne? Therefore none of the early writers mention that he had founded the Catholicate Throne. (No.203/70)

Cath. Augen and the Synod sent a swift reply: however, issues worsened. The Patriarch took steps to revive the division, by ordaining bishops in Malankara in 1972 and 73 without the consent of the Catholicose (i.e. contrary to the canons), and again denounced the Throne of St. Thomas as "unfounded and uncanonical" in another kalpana dat. 30th January 1974. Soon after, Pat. Yakub and the Synod of the Syriac Orthodox Church deposed Cath. Augen, and installed a parallel Maphrianate in Malankara. The division was never to cease and continues until this day.

The Priesthood of Apostle Thomas

It would be well to begin from this matter and pass over it concisely. Pat. Yakub cited John 20:21-24 to prove that St. Thomas couldn't have been a priest, since he wasn't present when Christ breathed the Spirit on the Apostles and entrusted the privileges of priesthood with them. Is this how the Fathers view the matter?

As early as the third century, the Syro-Antiochene Didascalia Apostolorum reports that India received "the apostles' ordination to the priesthood from Judas Thomas" (Simone Assemani, Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio X:7). St. John Chrysostom, while commenting on Acts 1:15-26, writes that "for since one had betrayed Christ, and another had been unbelieving, he thereby shows that, except the first, all of them were preserved" (Third Homily on Acts). Chrysostom goes on to imply that the preservation is concerning "bishopric.. office.. priesthood" since the point made is that Judas Iscariot's office is transferred to Matthias.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, the Pillar of Faith and the Seal of the Fathers, makes the most expository commentary on the priesthood of St. Thomas with respect to John 20:21-24, for our purposes. It would be well to quote the Doctor in full.

After glorifying them with the great honor of apostleship and making them stewards and priests of the divine altar, as I just mentioned, he immediately sanctifies them by his own Spirit... But since we must take every precaution in our explanation that no offense may spring up among the brothers because of the slander of some, come, let us add the following to what has been said and fend off the babbling that we expect will come from some quarters. We find that it is written in the next passage that "Thomas (who was called the Twin) was not with the disciples when Jesus came." How then, one may ask with good justification, was he truly made a participant of the Holy Spirit, since he was absent when the Savior appeared to the disciples and breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit"? We reply that the power of the Spirit extended to everyone who received grace, and the Spirit fulfilled the intention of the one who gave him. And Christ gave the Spirit not to some but to all the disciples. Therefore, they receive the Spirit, even though some are not present, since the abundance of the giver is not limited to those who are present but extends to the entire chorus of the holy apostles. .. But this was proper for Thomas, since he had been enriched by the Spirit along with the others. As we have already explained, just because he was not present, that does not mean that he was without participation in the Spirit. The generosity of the giver extended to him as well, since the gift was given to the holy disciples as a whole.(Commentary on John XII:1)

That must be enough to settle the dispute. But lastly, we consult St. Gregory Bar Hebraeus too, for he is the foremost Syriac Orthodox historian and canonist, and was a Maphrian-Catholicose too. In his Ecclesiastical Chronicle II, he refers to St. Thomas as "the first chief / high priest of the East". This is in contrast to Pat. Yakub's claim that St. Thomas was not a priest nor a "high priest".

Thomasine Heritage and See of St. Thomas in the Near East

West Syriac sources, including Chronicon Anonymum of 846, Doctrina Apostolorum and Bar Hebraeus, are pretty consistent in attributing a Thomasine origin to the Church / See of East. This is particularly evident in the latter, who — as noted earlier — begins the second part of his Ecclesiastical Chronicle with St. Thomas and his mission, identifying him as the first Primate of the East. East Syriac sources generally emphasize on incorporating Addai and his disciples Aggai and Mari: Ibn at-Taiyab (d. 1043) and Amr b. Matta even exclusively attributes the founding of the Church in the East to Mari. In fact, Bar Hebraeus himself records how, up to the time of Cath. Timothy (780-823), "the bishops of the region of Fars" — most probably including the Indian bishops / clergy under Persian jurisdiction (cf. Wilhelm Baum and Dietmar Winkler, The Church of the East: A Concise History, p. 62) — rejected the authority of the Catholicose of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, saying, "We are the disciples of the Apostle Thomas, and we have nothing in common with the throne of Mari" (Ecclesiastical Chronicle II:171). Nevertheless, some other East Syriac sources are more in line with the West Syriac tradition, including Apostle Thomas among the founders. ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha, for instance, writes:

The holy apostles, teachers of the eastern region, namely Thomas and Bartholomew from the group of twelve, and Addai and Mari from the group of seventy, handed down to all the churches of the East the sacred and reserved leaven for the preparation of the mystery of the Lord's body until his coming. (On the Veracity of the Christian Religion 4:6)

It is, therefore, unsurprising that the Catholicoi of Seleucia-Ctesiphon wouldn't use the title "Throne of St. Thomas", if they largely preferred to affiliate with the Marite heritage. If not the "Nestorian" Catholicoi, then, which other office would be in a position in the Near East to claim the title? The Syriac Orthodox Maphrian-Catholicoi.

Maph. Denha I of Tagrit (d. 659), in his History of Marutha, records the consecration of his predecessor, Maph. Marutha (d. 649). He received episcopal ordination and authority over "the city of Tagrit which is the Metropolis of the East, as well as governance of the entire Eastern region", and his office is described as "the Apostolic and Patriarchal Throne / Seat [ܟܘܪܣܝܐ ܫܠܝܚܝܐ ܘܐܒܗܝܐ]" (François Nau, Histoires d’Ahoudemmeh et de Marouta, métropolitains jacobites de Tagrit et de l’Orient, p. 79). While signing the decrees of the Synod of Callinicos 818, Maph. Basil I of Balad styles himself as "Metropolitan of Tagrit and Primate of the Throne / Seat [ܟ݁ܽܘܪܣܝܳܐ] of the East" (Iskandar Bcheiry, West-Syriac Synodal Decrees of Callinicos 818).

In 1581, Maph. Basil Pilate (d. 1591) sent a letter to Pope Gregory XIII of Rome, concerning the election and consecration of Pat. Ignatius Dawud II Shah, which took place in 1576. The Maphrian styles himself as "Servant of the Throne of St. Thomas the Apostle, of the Oriental Region, India, Dorbegian (?), and Persia”. In the list of participants of the aforementioned consecration, Maph. Basil Pilate is mentioned first, as "Basilius Catholicos, of the East and India, on the Throne of St. Thomas the Apostle" (Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Documenti intorno alle relazioni delle Chiese orientali con la S. Sede durante il pontificato di Gregorio XIII, p. 84-90).

Continuing in the same tradition of styling the Maphrian-Catholicoi as reigning on the Throne of St. Thomas, Pat. Abded Mshiho II wrote in his kalpana dated Sep. 17, 1912:

..We have ordained in person our spiritually beloved Ivanios in the name of Baselius as Maphrian, i.e. Catholicose on the Throne of St. Thomas in the East, that is, in India and other places…” (Ext. A-13, cit. 1995 SC Judgement).

Metropolitanate of Malankara and the Throne of St. Thomas

Interestingly, the Maphrianate of Tagrit was not the only office in the East to claim the title "Throne / See of St. Thomas": the Metropolitans of Malankara too claimed the title for themselves, probably based on native traditions reporting the Apostle to have ordained a bishop and priests in the region.

The Latin Passio Thomae, dated variously between the fourth and eighth century, and probably depends on reliable information from Asia (compare with the contemporaneous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s Record of 883 concerning King Alfred of Wessex’s embassy to India for visiting the shrines of Sts. Thomas and Bartholomew), observes that “there is the Throne of St. Thomas the Apostle and the catholic faith to this day” in Andranopolis. Most scholars opine this term to be a corruption of the Syr. Sandaruk — meaning “land of sandalwood” — and situates it in Malankara (Thomas Koonammakkal, Acts of Thomas versus Ramban Pattu in St. Thomas and India: Recent Research).

The colophon of Vat. Syr. 22, a thirteenth-century Syriac manuscript copied by deacon Zechariah bar Joseph at the Church of Mar Quriaqose in Kodungallur, mentions “our head Mar Yaqob, Metropolitan, Chief and Governor of the Holy See of the Apostle Mar Thoma, and of the whole Church of India” (f. 93). Mar Thoma I-IX's use of the title "Mar Thoma" indicates that the Thomasine succession was not forgotten by the Miaphysite Malankara Metropolitans after the Coonan Cross Oath: rather, it was emphasized more.

The title "Throne of St. Thomas" resurfaces in the nineteenth century. Mar Philexenos II of Thozhiyoor styles himself as "Metropolitan Philexenos named Geevarghese, on the Throne of St. Thomas of Malankara and the whole of India" in the stathikon issued to Mar Dionysius III of Punnathra (Ext. 29; cit. 1889 RC Judgement). Mar Dionysius IV of Cheppad identifies himself as “reigning on the Throne of Blessed St. Thomas” in the stathikon issued to Mar Koorilose of Kuthoor (Ext. 8; ibid). This title was acknowledged by the Syriac Orthodox envoys, too. The seal of Met. Yuyakkim Mar Koorilose, the Patriarchal Delegate to Malankara, read: “On the See of St. Thomas” (Ignatius Yacoub III, History of the Syrian Church of India, p. 238). The inscription placed at St. Mary’s Church Rackad by Mor Gregorios Abded Nuhro, Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, refers to the same Mar Koorilose as one “who reigns on the Throne of Apostle Thomas in Malankara” (Konat Abraham Malpan, Mar Thoma Sleehayude Simhasanam, p. 16).

Conclusion

From consulting the sources, it is clear that the title Throne of St. Thomas has a historical foundation, and was used by the Primates on the See of the East (contra Pat. Yakub III). The title was used by two Thomasine offices: namely, the (Maphrian-)Catholicate of the East, and the Metropolitanate of Malankara.