By Santosh Digal
Manila, November 9, 2019: Carmelite of Mary Immaculate Father Mathew Chandrankunnel heads Ecumenical Christian Centre (ECC), a Protestant-initiated institute in Bengaluru, capital of Karnataka state.
The center was set up in 1963 by the late Reverend M. A. Thomas of the Mar Thoma Church to promote “unity among all humankind and creation.” ECC’s key focus is to empower people of various faith communities to lead a harmonious life with dignity.
Matters India Special Correspondent in Manila, Santosh Digal, conducted an email interview with Father Chandrankunnel about ECC programs and his experiences of interdenominational and interreligious work.
What is the relevance of ECC in India?
Our founder Reverend Thomas wanted a center where humanity could converge for interaction.
M A Achen (MA father, as he was affectionately called) established the center on a 30-acre land and built 30 buildings with various facilities including an auditorium with a seating capacity for 300 people. More than 200 people could stay at the center.
In this sprawling campus, the center tries to foster ecumenical, ecological and empowering mission in partnership with all Christian denominations and faith traditions.
Achen’s broad and heroic vision is extremely difficult to emulate. I am trying my best to rise to the benchmarks he had created.
He was a friend of Jaya Prakash Narayan (an Indian theorist, socialist and political leader), and interacted with Mahatma Gandhi while being am ardent disciple of Jesus.
Achen imbibed Jesus’ spirit of renunciation, fearlessness, and love for the downtrodden and the marginalized and hence he remains always a beacon light for the center.
After setting up the center, Achen renounced the directorship and entrusted it to Reverend K C Abraham from the Church of South India.
ECC now has a respectful place among the reformed Churches in India. As the director, I am invited to many programs organized by various Churches. I maintain cordial relationship with many Churches and their leaders.
I too invite those leaders for programs at ECC and this mutual respect and affection helps foster ecumenical and interfaith dynamism.
Besides leaders from various Christian denominations, Hindu and Buddhist monks come to stay at ECC.
ECC brings together the wider humanity. It energizes to move forward towards peace, harmony and progress. It has the potential for being a brewing center for ecumenism, spirituality, transformation, and management.
ECC provides leadership and becomes a bridge for local, national and international agencies. It works for Churches in Asia,
How did you come to ECC?
It is the extension of my childhood experience. As a child, I was attracted to the affectionate co-existence of the different religious traditions of Kerala, my home state. I grew up in Teekoy close to the famous St. George Church at Aruvithura in Kottayam district, where Christians, Hindus and Muslims live together peacefully.
During Christmas, carolers — young and old – used to visit all families in the area. People of other religious traditions welcomed us with love and enthusiasm.
I had many close Muslim and Hindu friends in the school. Many Hindus and Muslims were close to my parents. I still remember the affectionate way they related to us.
When I joined the Kottayam province of my congregation, our novice master gave us a book –Oru Sadhakante Sancharam –(The Way of the Pilgrim)– a Russian classical spiritual book. I read it many times and it influenced my spiritual journey. It is the story of a pilgrim who recites the Jesus prayer while moving from one pilgrim center to the other.
For my philosophy studies, I was sent to Dharmaram College in Bangalore. Its chapel helped me understand the teachings of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) better.
The altar’s left side sports symbols of all the religious traditions and their spiritual centers. On the top is the dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit. It depicts that humanity is moving towards the Divine and the Divine Spirit is shedding its light on the humanity in its collective pilgrimage.
On the right, Jesus is shown standing on the lotus flower, with disciples belonging to all cultures and races on his both sides. Jesus’ head is immersed in the Trinitarian consciousness.
Outside the church, the mosaic of Jesus as “Sanatana Sat Guru” calls on people to immerse in the richness of the Indian cultural, philosophical and spiritual milieu.
As part of the philosophy study, I was also taught all religious traditions by professors well versed in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam.
The religious formation helped me understand the importance of interreligious dialogue, especially the Vatican II teaching that the “Church accepts what is positive and good in all religious traditions.” That document was studied and signed by the Pope and more than 2,500 bishops from all over the world.
When I studied in Christ College Irinjalakuda, Kerala, my superiors allowed me to visit the Shri Ramakrishna Math in Puranattukara where Swami Siddhinathananda, who translated the book Oru Sadhakante Sancharam’ into Malayalam lived. I asked him why he, a Hindu monk, translated the Christian classic. He asked me to come and stay with him and my superiors allowed me in their monastery.
In the monastery, I saw a painting of Jesus praying in the Gethsemane placed at a prominent place in their temple. Interacting with the Swamis enlightened me to look for the Divine beyond all religious traditions.
I became a professor at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram after my studies abroad. I was asked to be in charge of the Centre for the Study of World religions, a post that helped me associate closely with the Indian religious traditions.
Once I invited Dalai Lama to Dharmaram College and Christ University to speak on science and religion. The Tibetan spiritual leader it my chest affectionately and asked me to teach his monks physics and philosophy as I had my doctoral studies on the interpretative problems in Quantum Mechanics at the University of Leuven, Belgium.
The teaching experience enabled me to go deep into the Buddhist meditation processes integrating the different spiritual traditions like Yoga, Buddhist Mindfulness, Jesus prayer, the Gospel of St. John where Jesus is depicted as the Sanatana Sat Guru which I have named as Philoyoga and conducted retreats in Europe, India and the US.
As a Catholic priest, how do you find working in a Protestant-initiated center?
I came to ECC with all the wealth of experiences mentioned earlier. I was appointed by chairman Bishop Isaac Philoxenos, a person of broad vision and leadership and the council members on December 16, 2016.
Bishop Philoxenos empowered me to broaden the horizon and supported me to take up bold initiatives to strengthen the ECC.
The new ECC chairman Bishop Geevarghese Mar Theodosius, who studied in Shantiniketan in West Bengal and a person of deeper spiritual insights, guides me with his experience.
As I am the first Catholic to be appointed as the director of ECC, it is a great opportunity to work for ecumenical and interfaith dialogue which is indeed the need of the time. All my experiences in interfaith dialogue and ecumenical partnership along with the intellectual training I in the CMI congregation enabled me to encounter the challenges offered by the ECC director’s post.
What are ECC’s recent activities?
ECC organizes training programs for pastors and Church leaders along with interfaith dialogue like Asian Buddhist Christian Dialogue and Asian Hindu Christian Dialogue.
Sexuality and Integrity of Life is another conference we conducted recently. It was attended by people from many churches and secular colleges.
For more than 80 pastors from Manipur, ECC had organized a workshop on Church and Leadership.
We also conduct secular programs such as Artificial Intelligence, Climate Change, Science and Religion where world-renowned scholars from Oxford, Cambridge, and other universities and organizations take leadership.
As an example, a conference on Science and Religion will be held November 21-23. It is directed by the Faraday Institute of Science and Religion, Cambridge University. Many from India and Russia will take part in the Climate Change and Religion January 11-13, 2020
Ecumenical leaders and Buddhist monks will discuss suffering and compassion in next March.
Any new projects in ECC?
We have developed a few new facilities in the campus. Vishwamitra Mandala is a park that brings together those interested in meditation and inward journey.
It has pebbles collected from Haridwar, Himalayas, with Buddhist mandala, the five kosha’s of India philosophy, and three ponds with a broad fountain represents body, mind and soul as a continuum as well as Living Water’s Fountain.
The founder’s tomb is decorated with red granite and white marble with a rainbow fountain with a bridge commemorating the concepts he introduced such as becoming a ripple in society and building bridges with societies, cultures and nations.
Barcelona football training program for kids of 4-16 ages is another innovation after I became the director tow years ago.
ECC is strenuously working hard to relate with the government and other agencies for the national integration, elimination of poverty, illiteracy, hunger, pollution and empowerment of women and other related issues.
Is it possible for the Churches in India to come together?
Bringing together all Christian communities and denominations in friendship and fellowship is still to be achieved. But we are moving towards that slowly and steadily.