Somewhat over three years ago, the Catholic Church was rejoiced by the conversion of Mar Ivanios, the schismatic Metropolitan of Trivandrum on the Malabar Coast of India, together with his suffragan bishop, Mar Theophilus, and many of their followers, both clerical and lay. The body to which these distinguished converts belonged is the Jacobite Church, and the details of these events are still fresh in the minds of most Catholics by reason of the steady stream of conversions from the Jacobite ranks that has gone on ever since the submission to Rome of Mar Ivanios and Mar Theophilus. But it seems to the writer of this article that there is a considerable lack of clarity on the part of those who have chronicled these happenings as to the exact nature and position of the Jacobites in India—one is told, for example, that the particular branch to which Mar Ivanios belonged split off from some other body, but what that parent body is or was is not made clear. It would seem, therefore, that it is not out of place to endeavour to trace the history and character of the church which formerly numbered Mar Ivanios as its most distinguished member.

The region with which our story deals is the undulating stretch of country which lies along the south-western coast of India between the sea and the Anamullay mountains. It stretches for about two hundred miles from Mangalore on the north to Cape Comorin, and includes British Malabar and the native states of Travancore and Cochin.

To understand who the Jacobites are and what their name means we must go back several centuries. The story is a complicated one, and as a beginning we must say something about a schismatical body which stands doctrinally at the opposite pole to the Jacobites.