An Appeal

Dearly Beloved members of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church all over the World,

        This is a special appeal to all of you who love the Malankara Orthodox Church. I am sending you this appeal as the president of the Finance Committee of our ancient apostolic Church. This year we celebrate the Catholicate Day on Sunday, 9th March.  We celebrate this as the Day of the Church whose freedom and identity have been recognized universally since 1912. It is a day to remember all our forefathers who struggled and fought for preserving our birthright of freedom and identity as the Indian Church of St. Thomas who gave birth to this Church in India in   52 AD. We must pray for all the fathers of the Church, both living on this earth and those who repose in the abode of Christ in the company of the Saints and Angels. There should be sermons and exhortations on this day concerning the history of our Church as well as our vision and mission in this world in the 21st century.
           As we all know, we collect donations on this day from all the faithful members of our church for the building up of our Church. We are very glad to note that the yearly contributions from the members of our church are gradually increasing over the years. The Catholicate Day collection this year (2007-2008) has risen up to Rs. 1.25 crore (1RS 1,25,00,000) which is a commendable achievement.

            An account of the Catholicate Day collection for the year ended 31st March 2007 is given below.

 
       This year, we wish to make a big improvement in this Catholicate Day collection. Our Holy Father H. H. Baselios Marthoma Didymos I,  the Catholicos of the East, by Kalpana No.15/2008 has clearly stated that this year’s Catholicate Day collection will be utilized also for the social development projects and welfare of the priests and financial help for the needy, downtrodden and marginalized sections of the society. Thus our budget for the year 2008-2009 is to collect at least 1RS 3 crore (3,00,00,000). We hope we can achieve this target if our members co-operate earnestly and sincerely according to the direction in the Kalpana that every earning member of our church shall contribute  at lease one day’s income to the Catholicate Day collection.

 I have a special appeal to the youth of our Church many of whom are well-placed and earning five digit or even six digit salaries.  Your Church wants you to join hands with it to relieve the miseries and agonies of our less fortunate brothers and sisters.  The Bible exhorts us to set apart the tithe--a tenth of our income for God’s work.  Kindly consider giving a suitable amount of your God-given income for the various charitable activities of your Church.

OUR  PROJECTS  FOR  THE CURRENT YEAR

1. House Building Project for the Poor families of the society of the Servants of the Cross

In our church, there are 4500 families below poverty line who are members of the society of the Servants of the Cross and who have joined our Church from the marginalized communities such as SC&ST.   By joining our Church, they have lost the reservations for jobs and other benefits from the government by being newly categorized as Other Backward Communities (OBC). Most of them have no government jobs and are workers on daily wages in various fields. They cannot build an average house by themselves or even have a decent shelter from the vagaries of weather. This year,  we plan to help about one hundred  such families to build their own houses for which we have estimated Rs. 60,00,000 (Sixty Lakhs)

2. Priests’  Welfare and Insurance Scheme
Our priests in India, especially in Kerala, are not well-paid. A senior priest earns a salary of not more than 1RS 7000 per month which is insufficient for even a five member family to survive. Moreover, when they meet with needs such us medical treatments, higher education of their children, marriages of their daughters or building a new house etc., they badly need financial help as they cannot survive with the very low salary. To meet with these challenges, we have  included Rs 50,00,000  (50 Lakhs) for the welfare of the priests.

3. Our other projects include Rs.Ten Lakhs for Marriage Aid,     Rs 10 Lakhs for Sick Aid, Rs 10 Lakhs for Education Aid,     Rs 30 Lakhs for the building construction of underdeveloped churches, Rs 30 Lakhs for natural calamity relief and another Rs.1Crore for grants to various spiritual organizations, development of pilgrimage centres, construction of Central Secretariat at Devalokam and other routine expenses for the Catholicate Aramana, Dioceses and Metropolitans.

We hope that every earning member of our Church will contribute at least  their one day’s income to the Catholicate Day Collection to fulfil all these plans and projects.

    Sincerely Yours,
     
    Dr. Mathews Mar Severios Metropolitan
    Finance Committee Chairman
    Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
    Mar Pachomios Mount
    Meempara, Ernakulam 682 308, Kerala
    Phone: 91-484-2760286