His Grace Philipose Mar Chrysostom Metropolitan Emeritus of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Kerala, who passed away in the early hours of 5 May 2021 at the age of 103, has been widely admired as doyen of peace and social harmony. Mar Chrysostom brought into the lives of ordinary men and women a realisation that to be a human being was about a burning desire to see justice in the ordering of society and a willingness to approach the literal historicity of doctrines with a human content. His leadership was quite significant for the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church (Mar Thoma Church), one of the ancient Churches in the world with more than 1.1 million followers. Marthomite communities are also living in Europe, North America, Africa, West Asia, as well as in most Asian countries including Australia and New Zealand.
Mar Chrysostom’s warmth of personality and his passion for honest debate about social and religious issues led to him speaking to a packed convention and congregation halls. The Maramon Convention, one of the largest Christian congregations in Asia, held in February every year on the sandbanks of the Pampa River, could be an instance. The presence of Mar Chrysostom in the Maramon Convention was seen as a great blessing by the thousands of attendees who spent 8 days for a spiritual retreat every year.
According to Fr. Dr. K.M. George, Paulose Mar Gregorios Chair, Mahatma Gandhi University and former head of the Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kottayam, “but for his disarming humour and self-deprecating laughter, Mar Chrysostom would have been stamped a heretic by some of the traditional church circles in Kerala including his own.” Fr. George said that “with his deep insight into the nature of the Divine and the radically new order of life announced by Jesus his Master, the bishop too broke many canons of religion in favour of the excluded and the powerless. He preferred to follow in the footsteps of his Guru rather than subscribe to the dogmattics of an institutional Christianity.”
Mar Chrysostom was a rich repertoire of wits and wisdom. Valiya Thirumeni, as he was fondly called by everyone, was “widely revered by people of all communities,” says A.M. Thomas, who served as Professor of International Relations and Dean of Social Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University. Prof Thomas said that “there is a general feeling that dignitaries of the church are distant from the ordinary folk. Mar Chrysostom dispelled all such notions. His great sense of humour attracted people to him. I don’t think that there was another bishop invited to the shows of the Malayalam entertainment channels. He made theological ideas more understandable to ordinary people.” Prof Thomas, whose ancestral home is close to the Maramon Convention site, said that “at the Convention he was a crowd puller because he made religion a simpler thing to understand, especially through his anecdotes.”
Mar Chrysostom’s adherence to the values of secularism and communal harmony is too well known. He proudly said that secular society was his dream. But he reminded that secular society “is not a society without God. It is a society in which all sections people have their faiths and God, they must respect each other and hence there is no room for differences as human beings.” Mar Chrysostom also stressed on the virtues of “unity in cultural diversity.” Yet he warned that social differences emerging from inequality and injustice would bring in existential crisis. This has to be tackled at the societal level. He wrote: “Social transformation is inevitable for the transformation of individuals. So, we need to innovate society for the transformation of the world and individuals.”
On his 100th birth year in 2018, the nation conferred Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian honours on Mar Chrysostom for his distinguished services. He received the award from the President of India sitting in a wheel chair. He was the first Bishop in India to receive Padma Bhushan.
Mar Chrysostom was an indispensable leader for the Mar Thoma Church and the ecumenical movement. He took part in several national and international assemblies/conferences and provided a dynamic leadership to the deliberations. The Evanston (US 1954) and Uppsala (Sweden 1968) Assemblies of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Second Vatican Council as official observer of the Mar Thoma Church (1962-65), the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) Assemblies and its Committees held in Bangkok (1967), Singapore (1973), and Penang (1977) are a few notable instances. He also provided leadership as president of various councils and bodies such as of the Kerala Christian Council, Christian Auxiliary for Social Action and the National Council of Churches in India. Besides, Mar Chrysostom served as the President of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and various other Indian ecumenical organisations.
According to Dr. Mathews George Chunakara, General Secretary, Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), Thailand, “Mar Chrysostom’s passion for building bridges between churches and different faith communities and his keen interest in nurturing relations with the leaders of other faiths have influenced many. A large number of people and communities beyond ecclesial boundaries cherish the love and affection rendered to many as well as the significant leadership this great humanist has offered over the years.”
Born on 27 April 1918 at Eraviperoor, Thiruvalla, which was part of the Travancore Princely State, Mar Chrysostom inherited the missionary zeal from his father, Vicar General Very Rev K E Oommen. After his graduation from the Union Christian College Aluva, Mar Chrysostom took up the work in the Ashram at Ankola (Karnataka) along with Rev. P J Thomas. He had his theological education at UTC Bangalore and St. Augustine’s College, Canterbury. In 1944, Mar Chrysostom became an ordained minister of the Church and was consecrated as Bishop with Alexander Mar Theophilus and Thomas Mar Athanasius in 1953. He headed the Church for nearly 68 years and became its Metropolitan in 1999. Mar Chrysostom voluntarily stepped down in 2007, but he went on taking part in church services in his official attire and became part of major programmes and social activities.
During his service in the episcopacy, which spanned over 68 years, he administered various dioceses of the Mar Thoma Church in India as well as in other continents where the Marthoma diaspora has been living.
Metropolitan received his name from Bishop John Chrysostom (‘Chrysostom’ means ‘Golden Tongue’), the church leader of 6th of C.E. Mar Chrysostom’s web page elucidates this further:
The words formed in the crucible of golden thoughts reinstated many people to the abundant life. Words golden wisdom enlightened many beginning many from his house, where he lives; in parishes where he renders his service; in great meetings such as Maramon convention to Meetings of world council of churches. The glittering tongue empowered the community and he used the tongue to argue for the community. Many a times it showed the hypocrisy of the fake leadership and stood as sign and symbol of true avenue to pass through. He is the first person to travel through that path and took the fresh challenges too. His dialogical method of sermons cultivated good crops in the hearers. We cannot draw a differentiating line between words and life of the Metropolitan. His life and message denote many meaning in life, a sacramental life!
Mar Chrysostom always sustained a spirit of innovation and freedom. His concerns for the poor, impoverished, and marginalised are also well acknowledged. This led him to launch STARD (South Travancore Agency for Rural Development) through which he sought to help economically backward communities of South Travancore to improve their lot and help them achieve self-reliance.
His experiences and experiments in his early years would have had a lasting impact on him. Once Mar Chrysostom wrote that he would have ended up as a registered porter in a railway station in Tamil Nadu, in south India. He was returning home to take up charge as a priest after his studies in the Bangalore seminary. While waiting for the train at the railway station, he went in for a conversation with them. As the porters challenged him to stay with him to understand their everyday life miseries, Mar Chrysostom accepted it and worked with them as a porter for one month. He writes in his autobiography: After the stay with them, and having found the distress and agonies of porters, I wanted to become a registered porter. But I had to secure the permission of metropolitan. The metropolitan saluted Chrysostom’s intention, but he reminded that he wanted a clergyman for the parishes. Mar Chrysostom then had to give up the idea of becoming a porter.
On the occasion of his 90th birthday, the Mar Thoma Church decided to build houses (Navathy Home Project) for 1,500 homeless people by imbibing his vision. During his 100th birthday, the Church again decided to construct 100 homes for the homeless and also implemented a project for the transgender community, to uphold and respect their identity. This was seen as a unique endeavour by any Christian Churches in Kerala.
Mar Chrysostom always respected diversity of opinion, but he never compromised on ethical principles. He won the hearts of all communities with a smiling face, humility and eloquent speeches. There are several instances when Mar Chrysostom put his own clergymen in trouble by asking uncomfortable questions. Once he was invited to speak on the necessity of prohibition in a convention. But, to the surprise of all, he spoke with an anecdote and a poser. Mar Chrysostom said, once he went to meet E.M.S. Namboodiripad (Kerala’s first communist chief minister in 1957) with a petition. As he went on complaining about the mounting alcoholism among Keralites, EMS stepped in and gave him a tip. EMS told him that “once all Christians stop drinking alcohol in Kerala, then he would think about introducing prohibition.” Chrysostom’s anecdote sent shock waves at the convention. Then he posed a question with a smile, “Are we ready?” Chrysostom’s always sought to generate questions for introspection and soul-searching. This he repeated in all his speeches at the Maramon Convention.
Mar Chrysostom always sustained a healthy and warm relationship with all political parties and their leaders. Yet, his receptive and affable mind-set was, regrettably, misinterpreted by some. For example, many eyebrows were raised when the BJP leader L.K. Advani inaugurated the birth centenary celebrations of Chrysostom at Mar Thoma Church headquarters. Advani had also attended the 90th birthday celebrations of Chrysostom. Prime Minister Modi had also greeted him on the occasion of his 100th birthday. However, the fact of the matter was that the Metropolitan was greeted by the leaders of all political parties and several cultural and religious heads of different denominations.
However, at times, Mar Chrysostom had some reservations about politicians. Yet, in an interview with the Livemint, Chrysostom said he had a “soft corner for the Communists in Kerala.” The Metropolitan also unfolded an anecdote: “There was a priest amongst us who would preach about equality all the time but would not go to the wedding of backward-caste (converted Christian) members.” “But one day he had to go to one such wedding, and he saw EMS sitting among the locals and having lunch there. Practice is the thing. Not preaching,” Mar Chrysostom said (Livemint, 28 April 2018).
M.A. Baby, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, had maintained a warm relationship with Mar Chrysostom which eventually resulted in a volume, Christ, Marx and Sree Narayana Guru; A Colloquy by Mar Chrysostom Senior Metropolitan and MA Baby, a few years ago. Baby says that the Metropolitan continued to inspire them “to undertake imaginative schemes and engage in the struggle for social emancipation.” He wrote that “the creative and critical collaboration between the left and the Senior Metropolitan provide models for the larger engagement between religious leadership and the political party.” According to Baby, Mar Chrysostom “had the experience of successfully implementing many schemes such as making provision for the education of the underprivileged, building houses for the homeless, etc which were also envisaged as part of the People’s Plan” initiated by the Left under the guidance of EMS.
Mar Chrysostom’s humour has always unfolded lessons of everyday life situations. He, however, knew that in early Christianity and in many early classical thinking, humour was not greatly appreciated. It was even derided in some instances. It took, perhaps, centuries for the world to recognise the philosophy of humour in speeches and writings. Way back in October 1907, an editorial in the American Journal of Psychology said that the largest function of humour “is to detach us from our world of good and evil, of loss and gain, and to enable us to see it in proper perspective. It frees us from vanity, on the one hand, and from pessimism, on the other, by keeping us larger than what we do, and greater than what can happen to us.”
Mar Chrysostom used his wit and wisdom for a noble cause which he kept close to his heart. He sought to remain ‘powerless’ for a world of happiness and to make sure that the real happiness comes only when we make the poor and deprived happy and satisfied.
An early version of this article first appeared in ‘Eurasia Review‘ (10 May 2021). The author wishes to thank M.A. Baby, Fr. Dr. K.M. George, Prof A.M. Thomas, and Dr Mathew George Chunakara for their comments for the article.
