Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

(f) The Church of South India (1947)
This was a union of four southern dioceses of the Anglican Church of India, Pakistan, Burma
and Sri Lanka and most of the South India United Church. Negotiations for unity were
begun in Tranquebar, the little town where Protestant missions to India began in 1706, in
1919. A South India United Church of Presbyterians and Congregationalists had been
founded in 1908, but the vision of a greater union of churches which held to the supremacy of
Scripture was kept alive.
The story of the Church of South India showed for the first time in history that episcopal and
non-episcopal churches could unite. Church order (the ministry) rather than doctrines were
the most difficult questions to face. Agreement on the Scriptures as the supreme authority in
faith and life, the Nicene Creed, and baptism and Holy Communion as sacraments came more
easily than agreement about the validity of each other‟s ministries.
Ministers who had not been episcopally ordained worked side-by-side with episcopally
ordained ministers. After the union all new ministers were episcopally ordained. The
benefits of union have been the sharing of the riches of different liturgies, and, for mission
purposes, an example of progress in Christian unity in a pluralistic society.
Mention must be made of the Mar Thoma Church of South India. It claims to be directly
descended from the mission of the Apostle Thomas in India. Its origins are certainly very
ancient and of the early Eastern Church rather than the Western. It has kept its own identity,
resisting absorption by either Catholic or Protestant missionary bodies. Despite internal
divisions over the years, it has about 1,000,000 members worldwide.
It defines itself as „Apostolic in origin, Universal in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in
principle, Ecumenical in outlook, Oriental in worship, Democratic in function, and Episcopal
in character.‟ 147 It had its own reformation in the early 19 th Century when it rejected many
Catholic practices, such as prayers for the dead and to the saints, and the Eastern Orthodox
use of icons. It came to stress the importance of the Bible in liturgy and daily life. The
Church has been actively involved in the programmes of the WCC from its inauguration, and
is a member of the Christian Conference of Asia, the National Council of Churches and the
Kerala Christian Council.
(g) The United Church of Christ in the Philippines (1948)
This union drew together the Philippine Methodist Church, the Evangelical Church, the
United Evangelical Church of the Philippines and, in 1962, the Church of Christ
(Disciples). 148
147 Rev C P Philipose, in Introduction to Concise History of Malankara Marthoma Church (1936) by T
C Chacko, pp 12-13.
148 A History of the Ecumenical Movement Vol 3, 1968-2000, ed John Briggs, Mercy Amba Oduyoye
& George Tsetsis, World Council of Churches, pp 506-507.
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