Talk:Diocese of Madras of the Church of South India

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. --BDD (talk) 17:19, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Diocese of Madras of the Church of South India → Anglican Diocese of Madras
• Madurai-Ramnad Diocese of the Church of South India → Anglican Diocese of Madurai-Ramnad
• Thoothukudi - Nazareth Diocese of the Church of South India ‎ → Anglican Diocese of Thoothukudi - Nazareth
• Trichy-Tanjore Diocese of the Church of South India → Anglican Diocese of Trichy-Tanjore
• Diocese of Vellore of the Church of South India → Anglican Diocese of Vellore
• Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India → Anglican Diocese of Jaffna

– Anglican diocese articles are conventionally named in the format 'Anglican diocese of X'. These dioceses of the Church of South India are full members of the Anglican communion. The other articles and categories of the CSI use the word Anglican, so naming these as 'Anglican Diocese of X' would bring uniformity. Please see a related discussion here. This discussion is intended to be about the titles of all the CSI diocese articles, including the following:

• Anglican Diocese of Central Karnataka
• Anglican Diocese of Dornakal
• Anglican Diocese of East Kerala
• Anglican Diocese of Karimnagar
• Anglican Diocese of Krishna-Godavari
• Anglican Diocese of Medak
• Anglican Diocese of Nandyal
• Anglican Diocese of North Kerala
• Anglican Diocese of Nothern Karnataka
• Anglican Diocese of Rayalaseema
• Anglican Diocese of South Kerala
• Anglican Diocese of Southern Karnataka
• Anglican Diocese of Tirunelveli
• Anglican Madhya Kerala Diocese
• Anglican Diocese of Coimbatore
• Anglican Diocese of Kanyakumari

The Discoverer (talk) 07:44, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose move. I think uniformity is a little illusory - after all, the CSI is in an unusual position of being a united church. It is Anglican, but it is not just Anglican - it is also Methodist and Presbyterian. Certainly "diocese" is an Anglican-sounding word, but they are also the equivalent of Presbyterian synods or presbyteries. (The CSI is also presbyterian, and is a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.) By the way, the Church of North India dioceses are in a similar position: Anglican Diocese of Bombay, Anglican Diocese of Calcutta, Anglican Diocese of Lucknow are also relevant to this discussion, and I propose that they be moved to Diocese of Bombay of the Church of North India, etc. The other CNI article is Diocese of Eastern Himalaya (which presumably is unambiguous) and the article does not say much, but it does say the diocese has a "twinning agreement with the Presbytery of Lothian of the Church of Scotland". That would suggest it would be improper to call it an Anglican diocese. StAnselm (talk) 08:30, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Uniformity is certainly to be desired. The "united church" status of the CSI (and the other three united churches of the sub-continent) is not an issue here. All four have formally joined the Anglican Communion. To be clear, they are not "observers", or "associates", or even "in full communion" (like the Porvoo Lutheran churches) but rather they have become FULL members of the Anglican Communion. Their shared heritage with other traditions is undoubted, but their status today is that of full members of the Anglican Communion, as stated (unambiguously) on the Anglican Communion website. The comment above introduces complete red herrings - yes the Presbyterian 'synod' may be the rough equivalent of a 'diocese', but that is totally irrelevant, as the CSI is organised into dioceses, not synods. There was a lengthy period of ambiguity for these four united churches whilst the union was taking place, but there is no such ambiguity today - their Bishops are full members of the Lambeth Conference and their Primates are full members of the Anglican Communion Primates' Meeting, and the usual naming conventions should be adopted here. Timothy Titus ^{Talk To TT} 08:43, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is saying it isn't Anglican - but we shouldn't privilege the Anglicanism above the Methodism, for example. It could just as well be called the Methodist Diocese of Madras. And "Anglican Diocese of Madras" is by no means its official name, which is, of course, simply "Diocese of Madras". The issue is how to disambiguate it. StAnselm (talk) 09:02, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Many of the dioceses on this list have been moved unnecessarily, and should go back to their unambiguous name. E.g. Diocese of Krishna-Godavari rather than Anglican Diocese of Krishna-Godavari or Krishna-Godavari Diocese of the Church of South India. There is no other diocese of that name, and that is both the official and the common name (see also the diocesan website). I am not aware of any naming convention that suggests it should be anything else. StAnselm (talk) 10:45, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• Partial support -- As I understand it the Church of South India was formed by the amalgamation of the Church of England (in India) with the Indian branches of certain other denominations. I am in UK and do not wish to impose my ideas, if they are contrary to local usage. I would agree with User:StAnselm that a denominational word is only needed in the title "Diocese of Foo" if there is another "Bishop of Foo" of another denomination, so that there is a need to disambiguate. This will probably only be where there is also a Roman Catholic bishop, whose see is named from the same town. The question, whether "Anglican" is an appropriate adjective for CSI, must depend on actual usage in India, something of which I am not aware. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:45, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comments: I think that it is preferable to use Anglican to disambiguate these dioceses, because based on my personal experience, the primary characteristic of CNI and CSI churches is Anglican. However, my experience of CSI and CNI churches is fairly limited, so I feel that it would be great if we could get the views of members of these churches. Towards this end, I have requested the input of an editor who has been very active at the CSI article. Further, the concept of a diocese is more Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican, and not Methodist. Hence, it makes more sense to use Anglican to describe the dioceses. Also, due to their predominant Anglican character, it appears that they prefer being called Anglican [1].

Regarding the question of dioceses that do not require disambiguation, I strongly advocate including the disambiguating term. Not only does this bring uniformity into the article titles, but also for another reason. Although the 16.7 million Roman Catholics consisting of three rites make up roughly 70% of Indian Christians, there are 5 other denominations that also have dioceses. As a result you have extreme situations like the see of the South Kerala Diocese of the Church of South India at Trivandrum which it also shares with 2 Catholic sees (Latin and Syro-Malankara), 1 Malankara Orthodox and 1 Mar Thoma Syrian see, in addition to being a part of a Jacobite Orthodox diocese. Similarly, the see of the Madhya Kerala Diocese of the Church of South India, Kottayam also has 2 Catholic sees (Syro-Malabar and Latin), in addition to 1 Mar Thoma Syrian, 1 Jacobite Orthodox and 1 Malankara Orthodox. Then, you have the 'nominal location' sees. For example, the Diocese of Faridabad is practically the Syro-Malabar diocese of Delhi, and the Diocese of Kalyan is practically the Syro-Malabar diocese of Bombay, only slightly differing in location, apparently in order to avoid the same titles for the sees. You also have cases like the Anglican Bishop of Lucknow, whose see is at the All Saints Anglican Cathedral of Allahabad, while there are (distinct) Roman Catholic sees both places. Thus, even when the titles of the sees are different, considering the number of denominations and the size of the country (India), I feel that it is desirable to have as much disambiguity as possible in the article titles, even when there is (apparently) no disambiguation required. The Discoverer (talk) 20:44, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure we can conclude that they prefer being called Anglican from a single IP revert. Searching for the word "Anglican" on csisynod.com produces only three hits, all of which mention the other denominational heritages in the same breath. Doing an Indian Google search for "Anglican" gives the 500,000-member Anglican Church of India as the top result. I did see a news item of the new Bishop of Nandyal (India gets first woman Anglican bishop from Andhra), but other news sources report that story without the emphasis on Anglicanism: CSI appoints woman as bishop. StAnselm (talk) 21:02, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The Madras diocese website at one place [2] calls it 'the Anglican Diocese of Madras in the Church of South India'. The Discoverer (talk) 05:29, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose move -even though CSI orginates its base from anglican in india it cannot be called in complete as Anglican church alone .It has evolved not only from anglican but also the other churches like Methodist Church,Presbyterian Denomination and Congregational Denomination.This name change will have more confusion among users searching for CSI Dioceses and related links as majority refers Church of south india as prefix or suffix in the diocese names in their official purposes and the general public also are not using Anglican.Jibin net (talk) 02:51, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

However, while referring to CSI and CNI together, people (the general public) do commonly use 'Anglican'. The Discoverer (talk) 04:39, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose (in respect of the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India) - There is an Anglican church, the Church of Ceylon, which operates in the territory covered by the Jaffna diocese and therefore renaming the article Anglican Diocese of Jaffna might confuse readers into thinking it was related to the Church of Ceylon.--obi2canibe^{talk contr} 19:40, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Uniform title style for articles

With regard to the above discussion, I am moving have requested BDD to move the above pages to the name style 'Anglican Diocese of 'foo' ' to maintain uniformity in the names of all the dioceses. The Discoverer (talk) 17:32, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Please do not do this. Inasmuch as it ignores a formal decision, this is equivalent to recreating a deleted article and will be considered disruptive. --BDD (talk) 17:56, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, sorry, I won't, my concern is that some of the articles have one name style and the other have another.The Discoverer (talk) 18:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• That said, The Discoverer has a point that we're now left with a mix of Diocese of Foo of the Church of South India, Foo Diocese of the Church of South India, and Anglican Diocese of Foo (plus a rogue Anglican Foo Diocese). These probably should be standardized. Most participants in the above discussion agreed it was misleading to describe these dioceses as (only) Anglican, so it's likely one of the first two forms would attract the most support. --BDD (talk) 19:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

It should be Diocese of Foo of the Church of South India, unless Diocese of Foo is completely unambiguous. StAnselm (talk) 20:58, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, so I think Anglican Diocese of Medak should go simply to Diocese of Medak, but I am unable to complete the move. I have moved several other ones. StAnselm (talk) 21:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I have moved all the ones I can? Do I need to use WP:RM for the others? Category:Church of South India still looks a mess. StAnselm (talk) 08:40, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I moved the remaining pages so that now all the CNI and CSI diocese articles now have the title style 'Diocese of Y of the CXI'The Discoverer (talk) 12:01, 16 October 2013 (UTC)