An Indian diocese has opened its facilities to welcome Hindu pilgrims during a six-week festival in a northern city, hailing it as a “wonderful experience of faith.” Organizers of the millennia-old Maha Kumbh Mela, a mammoth expression of religious piety and ritual bathing that opened on Jan. 13, expect 400 million people in the city of Prayagraj, earlier called Allahabad.

“You have to see it to believe it,” Bishop Louis Mascarenhas of Allahabad in the northern Uttar Pradesh state told UCA News on Jan. 15. “We have thrown open three of our educational institutions — St Joseph College, St Mary’s Convent Inter College, and Bethany Convent School — for the convenience of Hindu pilgrims during the entire duration of the festival,” Mascarenhas said. He said the pilgrims were driven by their faith to take the holy dip in the cold waters despite the temperatures hovering around 4 to 5 degrees Celsius.

Hindus believe that during the auspicious period, a ritual bath in the confluence of the holy rivers Ganges, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswathi can wash away sins, free them from the cycle of rebirth, and help them attain moksha (salvation).

The Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj attracts Hindus worldwide as it occurs only once every 12 years. Many pilgrims begin bathing in the waters before sunrise during the festival scheduled to culminate on Feb. 26.
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The First General Assembly of the Communion of Churches in India (CCI) held at Santhigiri, Aluva, from March 7-10, was a significant event in the history of ecumenism in India. It marked the beginning of a new development of church relationship and common action among the CNI, the CSI, and the Mar Thoma Church . About seventy representatives from the three Churches including their heads and chief office bearers came together to affirm their preparedness to explore new ways of growing in mutual understanding, and a deepening of their experience of oneness in Christ.
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The Commission for dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church met at the Spirituality Center of the Syro-Malabar Church at Kottayam (Kerala, South India) December 5-8, 1994. All Commission members were present.

1. The principal subject was the study on the role of the Episcopate in guaranteeing the Unity of the Church. After taking up again the text on “Synodal Structure and Practice” (P.M.O. John) two other documents were presented: “Koinonia in the Church” (Mar Severios) and “Ecclesial Communion: A biblical-theological perspective” (P.M. Vellanickal). The sub-commission has begun to draft a first synthesis on “the Church as Communion (Koinonia)” which has been discussed by the assembly.

These progressive studies, which have not led immediately to concrete decisions, have engaged the commission in a process of successive approaches to the mystery of the Church and more precisely of its sacramental structure which is common to the two Churches. These approaches also permit us to perceive the links between this structure and the exercise of authority in the Church. It has therefore asked a sub-commission to explore more deeply the notions of authority (exousia) and of service (diakonia in the Church understood as communion (koinonia).
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