Head of India’s Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church to meet Pope

September 02, 2013 - The head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, based in India, is visiting the Vatican this week during which he will meet Pope Francis on Thursday. The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said Catholicos Baselios Marthoma Paulose II will visit the Vatican, Sept. 4-6, as part of his pastoral visit to his faithful in Europe. The India-based Orthodox Malankara Church, that is not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, is divided into two communities – the Syrian Orthodox Malankara Church, also called Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, which is in communion with the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church headed by Moran Baselios Marthoma Paulose II, an autonomous Church, with some 2.5 million faithful in 30 dioceses. With regard to relations between the Catholic Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church two very important meetings had taken place earlier between Pope John Paul II and Catholicos Moran Mar Baselios Marthoma Mathews I – the first in 1983 in Rome and the second in 1986 in Kottayam, Kerala, during the late Pope’s visit to India, which resulted in the formation of the Mixed International Commission between the two Churches. Since 1989 the Catholic Church has been holding annual meeting with both branches of Kerala’s Orthodox Malankara Church. Besides meeting the Pope on Sept. 5, Catholicos Baselios Marthoma Paulose II will visit the tomb of St. Peter and hold talks with Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.