Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in the context of "Baselios Cleemis"

The Liturgy of Saint James is a form of Christian liturgy used by some Eastern Christians of the Byzantine rite and West Syriac Rite. It is developed from an ancient Egyptian form of the Basilean anaphoric family, and is influenced by the traditions of the rite of the Church of Jerusalem, as the Mystagogic Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem imply. It became the primary Divine Liturgy in the Church of Antioch and Church of Jerusalem in the early fifth century, soon becoming supplanted by the liturgies of Saint Basil and Saint John Chrysostom. It is still the principal liturgy of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Maronite Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and other churches employing the West Syriac Rite. It is also occasionally used in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Melkite Catholic Church. The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church uses a reformed variant of this liturgy, omitting intercession of saints and prayer for the dead.

The liturgy is attributed with the name of James the Just and patriarch among the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem.

The Catholic Church in India is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope. There are over 23 million Catholics in India, representing around 1.57% of the total population, and the Catholic Church is the single largest Christian church in India. There are 10,701 parishes that make up 174 dioceses and eparchies, which are organised into 30 ecclesiastical provinces. Of these, 132 dioceses are of the Latin Church, 31 of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and 11 of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Despite the very small percentage-wise population that Indian Catholics make up in the country, India still has the second-largest Christian population in Asia, after the Catholic Church in the Philippines. All Catholic bishops, from all dioceses, come together to form the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, first convened in British India, in 1944. The ambassador representing the Vatican City, to the Government of India, is the Apostolic Nuncio to India. The diplomatic mission of the Holy See to India, similar to an embassy, was established as the Apostolic delegation to the East Indies in 1881. It was raised to an Internunciature by Pope Pius XII in 1948, and to a full Apostolic Nunciature by Pope Paul VI in 1967. Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli is the current Apostolic Nuncio, named by Pope Francis on 13 March 2021. The Apostolic Nunciature is located at 50-C, Niti Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

The majority, about 78.3%, belong to the Latin Church, the rest are Syrian Catholic Christians. The Syro-Malabar Church, one of the Eastern Catholic Churches, makes up around 19.7% of Indian Catholics, while the Syro-Malankara Church accounts for approximately 2.0%. These figures reflect the diverse liturgical traditions within Indian Catholicism, with Eastern Catholic communities primarily based in the Malabar region (present-day state of Kerala).

The Malankara Rite is the form of the West Syriac liturgical rite practiced by several churches of the Saint Thomas Christian community in Kerala, India. West Syriac liturgy was brought to India by the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Jerusalem, Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, in 1665; in the following decades the Malankara Rite emerged as the liturgy of the Malankara Church, one of the two churches that evolved from the split in the Saint Thomas Christian community in the 17th century. Today it is practiced by the various churches that descend from the Malankara Church, namely the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian Orthodox Church), the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, and the Malabar Independent Syrian Church.

Among these, the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and the Malabar Independent Syrian Church preserve the traditional West Syriac liturgy, while the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church follows a reformed liturgical tradition shaped partly by Anglican influences in the 19th century.

The Malankara Church, also known as Malankara Syrian Church, was the unified body of Puthankur Saint Thomas Christians who claim origins from the missions of Thomas the Apostle. This community, under the leadership of Thoma I, opposed the Padroado Jesuits as well as the Propaganda Carmelites following the Coonan Cross Oath of 1653, which was taken to resist Western Catholic influences.

The Malankara Church eventually came under the influence of the Syriac Orthodox Church but later split successively, leading to the creation of churches across various denominations and traditions. The Malankara divisions and branchings have resulted in the present-day Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Malabar Independent Syrian Church, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the Saint Thomas Anglicans of the Church of South India and the St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India.

The Major Archeparchy of Trivandrum is a Syro-Malankara Catholic Church ecclesiastical territory or major archeparchy of the Catholic Church in Thiruvananthapuram, India. Baselios Cleemis, the Major Archbishop-Catholicos of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, presides over the as of 2020. The cathedra is at Cathedral of Saint Mary, Pattom, Trivandrum in Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The Archeparchy of Trivandrum is a metropolitan see with five suffragan eparchies.