Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Distant drummers
It was with great reluctance that last year the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church acceded to Alexander Mar Thoma’s earnest desire to retire from its leadership because of old age. But in the bargain, he had to accept the specially-created higher post of Senior Metropolitan. If anything, it was a measure of the esteem in with which the 86-year-old church leader, agewise the senior-most in Christendom, was held by the church.
But for Alexander Mar Thoma, retirement did not mean abdication of all responsibilities. He continued to discharge them till he had to be admitted to a hospital where on Tuesday he breathed his last. It marked the end of 54 years of service to the church. But it is not the length of his tenure that will be remembered. Rather, it is the impact he made on the church.
The reformist church, which broke away from the Orthodox Church in 1836 but traces its origin to the arrival of St. Thomas at Kodungallur in AD 52, had only two churches to begin with, but now it has 1019 parishes spread all over the world with a membership of nine lakhs. But his emphasis was more on ecumenism as a result of which the church today has sacramental relations with the CSI and the CNI churches. That he took "the Cosmic vision in the Bhagavat Gita" as the subject of his doctoral thesis is in itself a telling commentary on his broad-mindedness. Small wonder that the saffron-clad Metropolitan was highly respected even in non-Christian circles.
Born in a lower-middle class family in a small village on the banks of the Pampa, he often wondered aloud about God’s grace that allowed such a lowly person to head the church. He was the epitome of simplicity and humility.
Until a few months ago when old age incapacitated him, he used to wash his own clothes, which were not many and which were discarded only after all his sewing abilities failed to save them. Once, his torn cloth induced a friend of mine to gift him a couple of hundred US dollars. But the friend got a surprise when a few weeks later he received a proper receipt from a social service institution the church ran directly under his supervision. "A cassock did not cost so much," reasoned the Metropolitan for sending the receipt. His only sister, a doctor, spent all her life nursing the sick and the wounded at the church’s ashram at Sihora in Madhya Pradesh till old age compelled her to return to Kerala recently.
He had an innate ability to relate with people of all ages and strata. I had the experience of witnessing him play table tennis with my toddler son when he was my guest for a day over a decade ago. Five years later when I received him at the New Delhi Junction, he did not need an introduction to ask me about my previous posting. His memory was proverbial.
When democracy and religion seldom go hand in hand, he told me how democratically run was his church. "The electoral college for electing bishops consists of 65 per cent laity and 35 per cent clergy and to be successful, a candidate has to get at least 75 per cent votes of both the groups," he said. Another fact that he buttressed was the indigenous nature of the Mar Thoma Church, which did not depend on foreign contributions whatsoever. "Even the poles for the pandal that accommodates over a lakh people for the week-long annual Maramon Convention, the largest of its kind in the world, are donated by our people." His regular editorial comments in the Malankara Sabha Tharaka were eagerly awaited for the lucidity with which he handled such subjects as the WTO and the Great Jubilee.
While the Metropolitan welcomed church members joining politics, he always steered clear of politics. But that did not mean he deviated from the church’s traditions of opposing the dictatorial policies of Diwan Sir C.P. and Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. All through what guided him was God’s grace as he described in his autobiography, In the Shadow of God’s Grace.
