No prayers to the saints, and none for the dead.
Abraham Malpan cut the invocation of saints, prayers for the departed and the offering of the Qurbana for the dead out of the liturgy, on the ground that scripture does not authorise them. Everything else in the service he left standing. It remains the sharpest doctrinal difference between this church and the Malankara churches it came from.
The removals were specific: prayers addressed to Mary and the saints, prayers for the departed, the offering of the eucharist for the dead, and the language of the eucharist as a propitiatory sacrifice. What stayed was the shape of the West Syriac liturgy, the church calendar including the saints' days as commemorations, the fasts, and the ordained ministry. Mar Thoma Christians in Kerala are therefore in the odd position of keeping Saint Thomas's feast without asking Saint Thomas for anything. The doctrinal line has held for nearly two centuries, and it is the standard test of whether a Kerala family is Mar Thoma or Orthodox.
The same ground, other faiths
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