Ahatallah

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Ahatallah (1590 – c. 1655) was a Syrian bishop^[1] chiefly known for his trip to India in 1652. His mysterious appearance in, and disappearance from Portuguese India caused a great uproar there, and resulted directly in a revolt by the Saint Thomas Christians against Portuguese rule and the establishment of an independent Malankara Church.

Ahatallah's biography is obscure. Many earlier scholars, including the Lebanese Orientalist Joseph Simon Assemani and Edward René Hambye, believed he was a Jacobite, a member of the Syriac Orthodox Church.^[2] He was elected Patriarch of Antioch under the name Ignatius by a group of Syrian Orthodox bishops.^[3] Historian Robert Erick Frykenberg states that he was a member of Syriac Orthodox Church when he came to India.^[1]

Ahatallah's appearance had joyed the Saint Thomas Christians, who had hoped for a new ecclesiastical leader to free them from the power of the Portuguese Padroado, which since the Synod of Diamper in 1599 had formally controlled church life in India. Soon, however, the Jesuit Manoel de Leira secretly alerted the Portuguese authorities about Ahatallah's activities, and they put him on a ship headed for Cochin and Goa.^[4] Hearing of this, Archdeacon Thomas led his militia to Cochin and demanded to meet with Ahatallah and examine his credentials. The Portuguese officials refused. They noted that no Patriarch could be legally assigned to India without the dispensation of the Portuguese, and informed Thomas that Ahatallah had already been sent to Goa.^[5]

Ahatallah was never heard from again in India, and the Saint Thomas Christians soon suspected that the Portuguese had murdered him. Rumours spread that the Portuguese had drowned him in Cochin harbour before the ships even left for Goa, or even that they had tried him for heresy and burned him at the stake. Even the earlier historians have mentioned that Ahatallah was drowned by the Portuguese.^[6] Some modern writers state that Ahatallah was not killed in 1653 he was sent as a prisoner to Lisbon where he died a natural death in the prison.^[6]

After realizing that the Portuguese had taken away Ahatallah from them, representatives of the Saint Thomas Christians came together at the Church of Our Lady in Mattancherry and swore the Coonan Cross Oath, in which they vowed they would never again submit to the Portuguese. By this action, an independent Thomas Christian church, known as the Malankara Church, was formed, and its leaders soon decided that Archdeacon Thomas should be elevated to the episcopal position they had earlier hoped Ahatallah would fill. Supporting this, Anjilimoothil Ittithommen, one of the senior priests, produced two letters supposedly from Ahatallah that authorized the Archdeacon's consecration as bishop and detailed a ceremony facilitating it.^[7] According to these letters, if no bishop could be found to perform the consecration, twelve priests could lay their hands on the candidate instead.^[2][8] The authenticity of these letters is not clear.

• Frykenberg, Eric (2008). Christianity in India: from Beginnings to the Present. Oxford. ISBN 0-19-826377-5.
• Neill, Stephen (2004). A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-54885-3. Retrieved April 20, 2010.
• Vadakkekara, Benedict (2007). Origin of Christianity in India: a historiographical critique. Media House Delhi.
• Brakmann, Heinzgerd: Jean Morin, Honoré de Bonfils und Atallahs Pontifikale: eine Episode frühneuzeitlicher liturgischer Syrologie. In: Oriens christianus vol. 96 (2012) p. 47-77.