Agreement with the Mar Thoma Syrian Church
In 1948 The Malabar Independent Syrian Church entered into a constitutional agreement with the Mar Thoma Syrian Church. This means that although the Malabar Independent Syrian Church does not accept for herself the reformation of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, both churches are willing to participate in each others episcopal consecrations and recognise each other as part of the 'one holy catholic and apostolic church'.
Agreement with the Church of England
In 1989 the Metropolitan of the Malabar Independent Syrian Church expressed his willingness to extend eucharistic hospitality to members of the Church of England. This he did while visiting the Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Rev. Robert Runcie.
Mar Koorilose with the Archbishop of York
At Weddings
In 1994 the Metropolitan declared that at weddings, where one partner was a member of another episcopal church, he was willing to accept the partner from the other church to receive communion in their church prior to the wedding, receiving communion being necessary for couples before getting married.
At Lambeth 1998
Taken from Section Four: Called to be One
4. The Malabar Independent Syrian Church
"The Malabar Independent Syrian Church, coming from the Syro-Malankar Orthodox tradition in India affords eucharistic hospitality to Anglicans. Good relations have continued to develop with the churches of the Anglican Communion in recent years. It would welcome an agreement on Christology with the churches of the Anglican Communion."
Some Modern Christological Statements
These are included for information and study:
Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue
Between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches
1989
Agreed Statement
We have inherited from our fathers in Christ the one apostolic faith and tradition, though as churches we have been separated from each other for centuries. As two families of Orthodox Churches long out of communion with each other we now pray and trust in God to restore that communion on the basis of the common Apostolic faith of the undivided church of the first centuries which we confess in our common Creed. What follows is a simple reverent statement of what we do believe, on our way to restore communion between our two families of Orthodox Churches .
Throughout our discussions we have found our common ground in the formula of our common Father, St. Cyril, of Alexandria : mia physis (hypostasis) Theou Logou sesarkomene, and in his dictum that " it is sufficient for the confession of our true and irreproachable faith to say and to confess that the Holy Virgin is Theotokos (Hom: 15, cf. Ep. 39)"
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Great indeed is the wonderful mystery of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, on e True God, one ousia in three hypostases or three prosopa. Blessed be the name of the Lord our God, for ever and ever.
Great indeed is also the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, for us and for our salvation.
The Logos, eternally consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit in his Divinity, has in these last days, become incarnate of the Holy Spirit and Blessed Virgin Mary Theotokos, and thus became man, consubstantial with us in His humanity but without sin. He is true God and true Man at the same time, perfect in his Divinity, perfect in His humanity. Because the one she bore in her womb was at the same time truly God as well as fully human we call the Blessed Virgin Theotokos.
When we speak of the one composite (synthetos) hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not say that in Him a divine hypostasis and a human hypostasis came together. It is that the one eternal hypostasis of the Second Person of the trinity has assumed our created human nature in that act uniting it with his own uncreated divine nature, to form an inseparably and unconfusedly united real divine-human being, the natures being distinguished from each other in contemplation (theoria) only.
The hypostasis of the Logos before the incarnation, even with His divine nature, is of course not composite. The same hypostasis, as distinct from nature, of the Incarnate Logos, is not composite either. The unique theandric person (prosopon) of Jesus Christ is one etern~1 hypostasis who has assumed human nature by the Incarnation. So we call that hypostasis composite, on account of the natures which are united to form one composite unity. It is not the case that our Fathers used physis and hypostasis always interchangeably and confused the one with the other. The term hypostasis can be used to denote both the person as distinct from nature, and also the person with the nature, for a hypostasis never in fact exists without a nature.
It is the same hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity, eternally begotten from the Father who in these last days became a human being and was born of the Blessed Virgin. This is the mystery of the hypostatic union we confess in humble adoration - the real union of the divine with the human, with all the properties and functions of the uncreated divine nature, including natural will and natural energy, inseparably and unconfusedly united with the created human nature with all its properties and functions, including natural will and natural energy. It is the Logos Incarnate who is the subject of all the willing and acting of Jesus Christ.
We agree in condemning the Nestorian and the Eutychian heresies. We neither separate nor divide the human nature in Christ from His divine nature, nor do we think that the former was absorbed in the latter and thus ceased to exist.
The four adverbs used to qualify the mystery of the hypostatic union belong to our common tradition - without commingling (or confusion) (asyngchytos), without change (atreptos), without separation (achoristos) and without division (adiairetos). Those among us who speak of two natures in Christ, do not thereby deny their inseparable, indivisible union; those among us who speak of one united divine-human nature in Christ do not thereby deny the continuing dynamic presence in Christ of the divine and the human, without change, without confusion.
Our mutual agreement is not limited to Christology, but encompasses the whole faith of the one undivided church of the early centuries. We are agreed also in our understanding of the Person and Work of God the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father alone, and is always adored with the Father and the Son.
Oriental-Reformed Dialogue
Agreed Statement on Christology
1994
'We confess our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, consisting of a rational soul and a body, begotten of the Father before the ages according to His divinity, the same, in the fullness of time, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, according to his humanity; thc Same consubstantial with the Father according to His divinity, and consubstantial with us according to His humanity. For a union has been made of two natures. For this cause we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord.
'In accordance with this sense of the unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be Theotokos, because God the Word became incarnate and was made human, and from the very conception united to Himself the temple taken from her. As to the expressions concerning the Lord in the Gospels and Epistles, we are aware that theologians understand some as common, as relating to one Person, and others they distinguish, as relating to two natures, explaining those that befit the divine nature according to the divinity of Christ, and those of a humble sort according to His humanity.' [Based on the Formula of Union, AD 433]
The four adverbs used to qualify the mystery of the hypostatic union belong to our common Christological tradition: 'without commingling' (or confusion) (asyngchtos), 'without change' (atreptos),·'without separation' (achoristos) and 'without division' (adiairetos). Those among us who speak of two natures in Christ are justified in doing so since they do not thereby deny their inseparable indivisible union; similarly, those among us who speak of one united divine-human nature in Christ are justified in doing so since they not thereby deny the continuing dynamic presence in Christ of the divine and the human without change, without confusion.Both sides agree in rejecting the teaching which separates or divides the human nature, both soul and body in Christ, from His divine nature or reduced the union of the natures to the level of conjoining. Both sides also agree in rejecting the teaching which confuses the human nature in Christ with the divine nature so that the former is absorbed in the latter and thus ceased to exist.
The perfect union of divinity and of humanity in the incarnate Word is essential for the salvation of the human race. 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.' (Jn 3.16 KJV).
