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Priest's book says Mary wasn't Virgin

A Christian priest's book depicting Jesus Christ as the illicit son of a Roman soldier and detailing his teenage sexual encounters has created a furore in Kerala.

The book's author, T Samuel Nettiyadan, is at the receiving end from several quarters for questioning the fundamental Christian faith that Jesus Christ was born to Virgin Mary impregnated by the Holy Spirit. The St Thomas Mar Thoma Syrian Church, to which he belongs, has excommunicated him.

The Syrian Church, which is considered tolerant to criticism and receptive to fresh ideas compared to its sister denominations in the state, decided to excommunicate the priest after a commission appointed by Archbishop Alexandar Mar Thoma found him guilty of blasphemy.

The commission was of the view that the book -- Joseph Enna Thachan (Joseph, the carpenter) -- was not only against the faith, but it also went against the spirit of the oath the priest took before his ordination. The Church Secretary said they were constrained to take the harsh step after Nettiyadan, despite being given several opportunites to admit his mistake, did not budge.

Nettiyadan, however, denies this. The ex-priest told this correspondent that his four apologies and a personal affirmation of his faith in Jesus Christ and Christianity before the Commission had failed to move the authorities. He said he was prepared to even withdraw the book.

He felt that the punishment he got from the Church was too harsh. "We (his family) have been totally alienated from the society after I was excommunicated," he said and added that people around were looking at the family with contempt.

His family, his wife and two children, are now living in Valakam near Kollam district of Kerala struggling hard to make both ends met.

However, Nettiyadan has no regrets about writing the book, which he thinks was essential to readjust the faith beyond the year 2000. ''I thought the de-mythologisation of Christ was the best way for the people of the 21st century to understand and believe in Christ.''

Although several books have been written on Christ and his life in Malayalam, a priest questioning the Christianity's core of the divine birth of Jesus Christ is unimaginable.

Almost all the writers who ventured into such an "adventure" have had to pay heavy price. While noted Malayalam playwright Antony saw his play Holy Sixth Wound banned by the state government allegedly under pressure from the Church, famous writer Paul Zacharia had faced angry protests for portraying the human sensibilities of Christ in his short story Kannadi Kanmolavum (Till you see the mirror) published in 1997.

Nettiyadan does not boast of any historical evidence to back his work, which he said, was intuitive.

Nettiyadan said that the subject used to haunt his mind since his seminary days. "I nursed it in my mind for 18 years and one day suddenly everything started becoming clear. I could not resist the inner urge to pen it down,'' he said.

In fact the foreword of the book is the description of the revelation the author gets from Christ himself about his unexplored period of his life. The 44-year-old ex-priest said that the work was the fulfillment of the quest for Jesus Christ taught in the seminary. He said that it was a critical study of Jesus of history than the Jesus of faith.

Nettiyadan said he could not accept Jesus as described in the Bible, as it seemed to be motivated writing.

Nettiyadan admits that the reading of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Swami Vivekanada during his seminary days had greatly influenced his thinking. "I felt myself frustrated after reading the works of the first two authors. I came out of that after reading Vivekananda," he said.

The story-line of the book is very simple. Mary, who's engaged to Joseph, is raped by a Roman soldier. Neither she nor her mother are in a position to resist. The Roman centurion, who visits her hut regularly, stops coming after learning about the pregnancy. The news is received by Joseph with shock and he backs out of the marriage.

However, the two come together accidentally and live an ordinary life. Jesus, who is helping his father in carpentry, finds a lover in Mary's widowed sister's daughter. Bewitched by her beauty, he regularly visits her until he decides to answer the God's call to become the liberator of the humanity.

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