DEAD ARCHBISHOP ENTHRONED TO RECEIVE HOMAGE

' N accordance with ancient custom, the body of Mar Ivanios, famous convert Archbishop of Trivandrum —"the Cardinal Newman of India"—who died last week at the age of 70, was enthroned in the crypt of his cathedral for the homage of priests and people. his His body was dressed in episcopal robes, and his pastoral staff was clasped in one hand and a cross in the other.
The clergy and laity passed by the frail figure in silence and kissed the staff and the cross.
The body. seated in a carriage, had been brought in procession from St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral to the still unfinished new cathedral.
60,000 converts
After Solemn Requiem Mass, the body, dressed in a yellow robe. was entombed in a sitting position in the crypt.
When he was received into the Church in 1930, Mar Ivanios, formerly a Jacobite Archbishop, formed a new Catholic rite. the Syro-Malankara rite, which used Malayalam, the language of Malabar, in the Liturgy.
At the time of his death the reconciliation with the Holy Sec had brought into the Church four firshops. about 125 priests and more than 60.000 laity from the Jacobite Church.
Mar Ivanios, horn in 1882, was of the Christians of India who according to tradition are the direct descendants of the original converts of St. Thomas the Apostle.
As a young man he entered the Jacobite seminary and was ordained priest in 1909. Within a few years he became rector of the seminary.
Even at that time he was yearning for reunion with the Holy See of Rome.
Proposed reunion
He founded a congregation of sisters and later, resigning his post as rector, founded a congregation of priests.
In 1925 he was elected Bishop by the Synod of the Jacobite Church and four years later he became Metropolitan.
Shortly after his consecration as a Bishop he formally proposed the reunion of the whole of the Jacobite Church with the Holy See and his suggestion was received sympathetically.
Mar Ivanios and anotheraBishop, Mar Theophilos. advocated an immediate submission to Rome. but the other Bishops were afraid that the people might not follow their lead
and thus they would be left without churches and without church property
As a result the other members of the Synod tried to convince the two Bishops to desist from their proposal and to persuasion they added threats of violence and attempts to arouse popular opposition.
The two Bishops, however, retired to Tiruvalla to pray and to prepare for their submission to the Holy See.
One priest, a deacon and one layman made their submission together. The two Bishops, of course, retained their episcopal status.
When the opposition of their former brethren had been overcome, Mar Ivanios began to reap the first fruits of his courageous act.
Received parents
First the congregation of sisters he had founded followed in a body, then the congregation of priests.
He also had the happiness of receiving into the Church his father and mother and other-members of his fami ly.
In 1932 the Holy Father nominated Mar Ivanios Archbishop of Fasi and that same year the Archbishop visited Rome to pay his tribute of devout personal homage to the Vicar of Christ. His Holiness conferred the pall it, m upon him.
That same year the new Christian community in India was given formal juridical status with the erection of the Syro-Malankarese ecclesiastical province, with two dioceses, Trivandrum and Tiruvalla, and Mar Ivanios became the Metropolitan of Divandrum.