{
  "bookName": "History of Christianity in India: Source Materials",
  "authorName": "M. K. Kuriakose",
  "publisherName": "Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge",
  "publicationYear": 2011,
  "chapterNumber": 117,
  "chapterName": "1866. Ecumenical Problems regarding Burial Grounds",
  "pageFrom": 204,
  "pageTo": 204,
  "pages": [
    {
      "pageNumber": 204,
      "ocrText": "204\nHISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA\ndo need a liturgy of some kind. Then again, the status to be given\nto our native pastors, is a difficulty which each year waxes greater\nthan ever. So long as the power of ordination is vested solely in\nthe head of the Ecclesiastical Establishment of this land, and the\nnative pastor becomes, to some extent, identified with European\nmissionaries and clergymen, there must always be a danger, lest\nordination should diminish, rather than increase his influence and\nusefulness amongst his countrymen; and a really worthy and useful\nfellow-labourer becomes sadly puffed up with pride and self-\nimportance, by finding himself suddenly raised to such a position.\nDoubtless, this danger might be to a great extent obviated, were\nordination conferred on our native pastors in our mission churches,\n-and still better, in the presence of their own congregations; but it\nis the fact of there being such danger at all-as illustrating the want\nof adaptation of a European and national system, to an Oriental\nand missionary church, -to which I desire to call your attention\nnow.\nIf this is so, and if it is really our object-not, as I remarked\njust now, to magnify ourselves, or to gain mere party adherents,\nbut to bring glory to our Saviour, and win souls for Him, then\nsurely we must all try, quietly and unobtrusively, to bring about\nsuch a state of things as Mr. Newton has sketched in his essay:\nand, instead of reproducing our own errors, or our own failings, in\nthe Native Church of India, we shall seek to give it strength, and\nstability, and unity, -by sinking all minor considerations in the one\ngreat object of building it on the one foundation, even Christ:\nin whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth into an\nholy temple in the Lord.'\n117. ECUMENICAL PROBLEMS REGARDING BURIAL\nGROUNDS (1866 A.D.)\nOne of the ecumenical problems often faced during the 19th century\nconcerned the question of the burial of Christians of other denomi-\nnations in Anglican cemetaries. The following is part of a letter written\nfrom Nowgong, Assam, by the American Baptist missionary Miles\nBronson, describing the problem and arrangements that had been made\nto circumvent it by Bishop Cotton. Cited in the Baptist Missionary\nMagazine, Vol. XLVII, (1867), pp. 46-47.\nThat good, devoted man of God, bishop Cotton, of Calcutta,\nhas just left us. His visit has been a pleasant one. The Episcopal\nceremony of consecrating the public burial ground here being about\nto take place, I wrote him, stating that the burial ground had from\nthe first been open to Christians of all denominations, and that, in\nconsequence, we had children, missionary associates and friends\nburied there; and, in case the act of consecration would in future\ndebar us from the right of sepulture there, in behalf of the mission",
      "status": "completed"
    }
  ]
}