Rev. Mothy Varkey
Mar Thoma Theological Seminary, Kottayam

As I understand the candidates for the priestly ministry of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church undergo four years of intense theological formation. What is the structure of ministerial training and what are you making them?

The theological formation of ministerial candidates has an incontestably vital role in the life and witness of the Church. As Pope Francis has rightly stated, seminary formation must be “a work of art, not a police action”, where seminarians “grit their teeth, try not to make mistakes, follow the rules smiling a lot, just waiting for the day when they are told ‘Good, you have finished formation.’…” Pope Francis was even more emphatic when he noted that the priestly formation “must form their hearts. Otherwise, we are creating little monsters. And then these little monsters mould the people of God”.
This does not mean that theological formation begins and ends with the seminary. Seminary education is a formal, syllabus-based, full-time training process. It must continue even after ordination in relation to the people of God and all that God has created. The theological journey is initiated at different levels such as parishes, families, schools, colleges, and neighbourhoods. It is upon the ethical dispositions and value systems that candidates have already imbibed that seminaries formally train them for the mission of the Church. No seminary has a magic wand to unilaterally and forcefully uninstall the less-than-appropriate behaviours/practices inculcated in the early years of life. It is by constantly submitting to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit and by heeding God’s redeeming voice that we renew ourselves in the journey of faith.
In the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, graduates and postgraduates are admitted to the seminaries in Kottayam and Delhi for theological studies after a comprehensive entrance test and thorough interview process. Our Church sends a few of the selected candidates to ecumenical theological colleges affiliated with the Serampore University in Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Jabalpur, and Serampore. We train our ministerial candidates in the fields of Old Testament, New Testament, Systematic Theology, Church History, Pastoral Counselling, Social Analysis, Communication, and Major Religions in India. As a denominational seminary that trains the future clergy of the Church, we give special attention to the faith and liturgical practices of the Church. Furthermore, students are expected to visit nearby slums, hospitals, de-addiction centres, and destitute homes on a weekly basis to widen their understanding of diverse human experiences. Thus, we equip ministerial candidates to be true disciples of Jesus Christ and to witness Christ’s inclusive love manifested on the cross by interrogating and resisting poverty, casteism, ecological crisis, and toxic masculinity.

“I believe Ambedkar is a more fitting companion for the Church to be partners with the victims of casteism in their struggle for justice.”

How do you relate the liturgical and the prophetic dimensions of the ministry of the Church?

The clergy’s primary responsibility is not to apotheosise the priestly office of the Church, but to practise, interpret, and propagate the Church’s faith, feasts, and festivals. Serving a faith tradition does not mean that the pastoral ministry is communal or limited to an ethnic/linguistic community, but that the faith community is nurtured and nourished to be the ‘salt of the earth’ and the ‘light of the world’.
Jesus also served a specific geographical-linguistic-cultural-ethnic community, but with a salvific vision for the world which evoked a consciousness alternative to the hegemonic-imperial-patriarchal culture. Such a ‘prophetic consciousness’ does not privilege or absolutise the particularities of any community. Instead, by bringing the claims of the tradition and the situation of enculturation into an effective interface, the prophetic dimension of the priestly ministry, on the one hand, problematises the ethical blind spots and ethnic exclusivity in one’s own community and, on the other hand, reconstitutes itself by energising members of the community.

How do you see the authority in/of the Church? What is the authority of Christ? All the three Synoptic Gospels speak of the debate among the apostles on the questions of power-sharing, but John’s Gospel is silent. Why does the washing of the feet appear only in John’s Gospel?

The New Testament clearly differentiates between authority (exousia) and power (dunamis). As German sociologist Max Weber rightly said, power is the ability to exercise one’s will over others through administrative and military factions (patrimonialism), long-standing customs, or laws. But authority is a relentless commitment to truth, love, peace, and justice. While Augustus Caesar, King Herod, and Pilate symbolise power, Jesus and John embody authority. Power is always apprehensive of authority and its epiphanic manifestations. John the Baptist condemned Herod for the alleged abuse of power under the pretext of marriage, which of course went beyond the bounds of normal public discourse. The High Priest Caiaphas not only declined to comment on Herod’s marriage, but even portrayed John as an example of escalating distasteful neo-puritanism in the empire and intolerance of human frailty which, in Caiaphas’ opinion, would lead to ‘tyranny of religious orthodoxy’.
Matthew’s Gospel understands the authority of/in the Church as missional and participatory. Jesus’ commissioning of the twelve disciples (Church) is a continuation of God’s saving activity, which began with Abraham and continued till John the Baptist. In the Gospel of Matthew––as with the mission, preaching and message––the fate and rejection of the disciples also connect them to John the Baptist and Jesus in a continuous way. This means the authority of/in the Church in the Gospel of Matthew is Christologically defined and signified.
Perhaps a more poised definitional description of authority is the shepherd imagery in Matthew’s Gospel. In first-century Judaism, the Messiah who comes forth from the lineage of David to ‘shepherd’ the people of Israel is the one who will ‘judge’ the house of Israel, an anticipation which Matthew also seems to uphold. These two role definitions of Jesus––judge and shepherd (Matt 2:6 cf. 9:36; 15:24) ––merge in Matt 25:32, where Jesus is depicted as an eschatological shepherd. However, the same eschatological shepherd will be rejected and struck down by the Jewish leaders (Matt 26:31). It implies that the authority in/of the Church is patterned after Jesus, who is not only the shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for the people as in John’s Gospel, but also the one who will judge his people in the eschaton. In other words, only pastors who are ready to be sacrificed for the people will have the authority to administer them; or else, it is power.
Both the Synoptic Gospels and John’s Gospel share a similar view on authority. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’ response to the desire of the sons of Zebedee is a beautiful explanation of authority. Jesus substitutes cruciform authority for James and John’s craving for a share of power in eternity. Authority is not to rule over and to be served but to serve. This paradoxical instruction is further amplified in Jesus’ response to the Greeks: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” However, only John speaks of the washing of feet. This could be because the Fourth Evangelist describes the radical reversal of fortunes and roles in symbolic and figurative terms, unlike in the Magnificat of Mary and the Nazareth manifesto, where the insurrections of the Kingdom of God are more materially nuanced and historically positioned.
In the history of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, we have two shining examples of the embodiment of authority in the persons of Juhanon Mar Thoma Metropolitan and Abraham Mar Thoma Metropolitan, who fought against dictatorial regimes. Juhanon Mar Thoma Metropolitan was the chief of the Mar Thoma Church when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared Emergency on June 25, 1975. He was the only Church leader in India to write a personal letter to the Prime Minister, asking her to lift the Emergency in the interest of Indian democracy, release political rivals from jail, and remove the gag on the media. Abraham Mar Thoma Metropolitan resisted the undemocratic and dictatorial actions of Dewan Sir C.P. Ramaswami Iyer and was instrumental in getting a resolution passed by the Mar Thoma Sabha Council condemning Sir C.P’s move to proclaim Travancore as an independent state following the lapse of British Paramountcy.

The Gospel of Mathew is believed to be written for Jewish Christians. For Mathew, the final criterion for the last judgement is justice, which is simply taken from the Old Testament. What is justice, according to Mathew’s Gospel?

For Mathew’s Gospel, justice is not retributive but restorative neighbourliness. Jesus is the judge, not just the one who brings liberation and its promise, as in Mark, who in an act of God’s grace declares justice as the basis of judgement in the present and calls to repentance so that people will be saved from their sins. Therefore, ‘justice’ in Mat. 12:18 and Mat. 12:20 can encompass both judgement and justice as the criterion for judgement. Mathew has Jesus offer a hermeneutical refocusing of the Law in terms of justice, mercy, and faith, but he also takes distinct care to specify that these virtues neither replace nor pre-empt the demand for meticulous observance of Torah’s commandments (Mat. 23:23).
Justice as the messianic criterion for judgement is in accordance with the Abrahamic principle of blessing and cursing in Gen. 12.3. This means justice not only warrants obedience to God but also defines significant ethical norms concerning primarily with the just and merciful treatment of others––the hungry, sick, imprisoned, and thirsty (cf. 7:21–23; 22:34–40). This is consistent with the obedience of the Torah, because showing acts of kindness and compassion constitutes the righteousness of the Torah (Hos 6:6). And the will of God is for humankind to love God and love the neighbour in need, which is the summary of the Law and the prophets (22:34–40; cf. Deut 6:5).

Does Mathew’s Gospel depict Jesus as the New Moses who gives a New Law on the Mount of Beatitudes? What is Blessed (Makarios), how is it related to justice? George Steiner has said that three Jews defined the world: Moses, Jesus, and Marx, all of whom come from the prophetic tradition. What is the future of Christianity and communism?

Matthew uses various typological matchings and tapestry of allusions–– attacks on male children (Exod 1; Matt 2:16–18); conflict with rulers (Exod 2; Matt 2:1–12); exile and God’s protection (Exod 2:15; Matt 2:13–14); the return from Egypt after the tyrant’s death (Exod 2:23; 4:19; Matt 2:19–20); and the fact that both save people (Exodus 5–7; Matt 1:21)––to position Jesus as the new Moses. The Matthean ‘scribal attempt’ to typologically connect Jesus with Moses continues in 5:1, where Matthew places Jesus’ teaching of the Law on the mountain. Matthew’s use of the phrase ‘went up to the mountain’ (5:1; cf. Luke 6:17) intentionally evokes the Mosaic ascent of Sinai (cf. Exod 19:3; Deut 1:24; 5:5; 10:1). The God of Israel who gave the Law to his people through Moses is ‘with us’ (cf. 1:23) now in Jesus to save his people from their sins of not being committed to the Law and the saving relationship, directly speaking and interpreting the true sense of the same Law to the people of Israel. So, Jesus is not teaching a “new” Law (cf. Mark 1:27).
George Steiner’s eloquent and seductive essay “A Season in Hell” in In Bluebeard’s Castle, published in 1971, argues that the Jews/Moses invented the exalted status of a particular group––a ‘chosen people’. Steiner also argues that thereafter Jesus followed it, with his radical demands for ascetic love, compassion, self-suppression, and disdain for worldly goods. Finally, there was Marx and the claims of a socialist society, in which privilege and private property would be abolished, and all forms of oppression eliminated. All three Occasions, a Jew was at the centre: Moses, Jesus, Marx. For Steiner, there is no difference between a people ‘chosen’ by God to bring his presence into the world and who have deep responsibilities imposed upon them by God and a ‘master race’ that is biological, naturalistic, with no assigned moral imperatives. In the end, Steiner takes the Nazi onslaught against the Jews as retribution for Moses, Jesus, and Marx.
Steiner has misrepresented the Holocaust, and his theory concerning the antecedents of genocide ignores almost all of the facts leading up to the Holocaust: social, political, and ideological (social Darwinism and racial science, preceded by a long history of anti-Semitism). His readings of Moses, Jesus, and Marx are flawed as he does not demonstrate why only Germans were instinctually repressed to the tipping point. Moses liberated the people of Israel from the bondage of Egypt and Jesus fought against the might of the Roman Empire. What characterises the thought of Marx is that, rather than making abstract affirmations about a whole group of problems such as human nature, knowledge, and matter, he examines each problem in its dynamic relation to the historical, social, political, and economic realities. Marxism is certainly an important analytical tool in the Church’s pursuit of justice and equality. Having said that, I believe Ambedkar is a more fitting companion for the Church to be partners with the victims of casteism in their struggle for justice.

Church histories are replete with conflicts, authority crises, and divisions, but Jesus’ prayer is for unity. How does unity seem an illusion?

The ‘histories’ of the Church are replete with crusades for money and power. Even the wars fought in the name of orthodoxy, dogmas, heresy, and schism were in fact, to a great extent, served to buttress the imperial agenda and geopolitical interests. Jesus prayed for unity It is still (only) a mirage and an illusion. Faith can be disruptive but not divisive. Christ unites, dogmas divide. A Christ-centred Church cannot be divided, but a dogmatised Church very likely does. However, unity is not uniformity (Eph 4:3). I must also say that our understanding of unity may need to be revisited in view of Bishop William Gohl’s (Delaware-Maryland Synod) prophetic warning at the Synod Assembly on May 14, 2022: “Church ‘unity’ is a false altar on which marginalised people are sacrificed.”