JACOBITES IN INDIA

Strong Movement Towards Catholicism
Frum a Correspondent BOMBAY.
Among the passengers on board the Conte Rosa which left Bombay harbour for Europe some weeks ago, there happened to be three long-bearded figures in loose flowing gowns and closely fitting embroided skull-caps, who naturally became objects of curiosity and comment on account of their dress and deportment.
These passengers were Moran Mar Basilios, Jacobite Catholicos of the East, and his two companions, Abo Alexios and Rembhan Thomas. The Abo is already a Bishop-Elect in that section of the Jacobites of Malabar over which the Catholicos presides; and the Rembham will be promoted to that dignity, in the near future.
As in the case of the late Mar Dionysius, Metropolitan of Malabar, a sentence of excommunication has been pronounced against the C'atholicos by the Jacobite Patriarch in Mesopotamia, and the followers Of the Patriarch in Malabar look upon the Catholicos and his adherents as heretics and schismatics. But the Anglican missionaries in Malabar have approved the Cat holicos party; and there are certain Jacobite churches where clergymen belonging to this party and pastors of the Church of England officiate at the same altar, and preach from the same pulpit.
Influences on Jacobites
With the widening of the gap between two sections of South Indian Jacobites, and their settling down into two mutually contending rival Churches, earnest thinkers in both these sects are more enthusiastic than ever to examine the credentials of the Jacobito Church in the country, and to look towards the Catholic Church. As the result of sincere enquiry many of these, following the examples of the Jacobite Prelates, Mar lvanios, Archbishop of Trevandrum, and Mar Theophilos, Bishop of Thiruvella, have entered the Catholic Church; and since the Holy See has graciously sanctioned a New Oriental Rite for them known as the Malankara Syrian or Malabar Syrian Rite, congregations of Jacobite converts are springing up in almost all Jacobite centres.
Personal ambition on the part of a Catholic priest laid the foundations of the Jacobite Schism in Malabar in the seventeenth century; and ever since personal ambition on the part of priests and prelates has been undermining its influence and strength incessantly. Western Materialism, Rationalism, LaiOsrn, and Religious Indifferentism are rife and rampant among all sections of the Jacobite community; and the general opinion is that its spiritual shipwreck can be avoided only by taking shelter in Catholicism.