Talk:Varkey Vithayathil

Varkey Cardinal Vithayathil?
Isnt it Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil? thunderboltz 15:12, 29 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Either Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil or Varkey Cardinal Vithayathil is accecptable. Wikipedia's naming conventions specify the Cardinal to be placed before the surname, for consistency in article titles. Gentgeen 03:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Request for undoing of move
moved. Based on the evidence provided, Mar appears to be a title and the argument that (in most cases) we don't use titles in article names is a strong one. --rgpk (comment) 20:36, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Mar Varkey Vithayathil → Varkey Vithayathil — Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC) The move from "Varkey Vithayathil" to "Mar Varkey Vithayathil" inserted a title or rank as part of a person's name, similar to naming an article "Bishop John Smith" or "President Barak Obama". "John Smith (bishop)" is accepted in Wikipedia as an article title, but not "Bishop John Smith". Relisted again. Andrewa (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2011 (UTC) Relisted. Jafeluv (talk) 07:00, 13 April 2011 (UTC) Esoglou (talk) 08:42, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Mar is not similar to bishop or other titles. It is a change in the first name. Varkey becomes Mar Varkey when Varkey Vithayathil becomes a bishop. If it were a title, it would be Mar Vithayathil, similar to President Reagan or Archbishop Vithayathil, but such is not the usage. Writing Mar Varkey Vithayathil (writing the correct first name) is not the same as writing Archbishop Varkey Vithayathil (prefixing a title). Karnan (talk) 18:15, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * If someone is elected to the See of Peter, he takes the title "Pope": "Pope" does not become part of his first name. "Mar" is a title: it does not become part of a man's name.  Any more than any other title becomes part of the recipient's name.  "Mar" is used with (not as part of) the first name, not the surname.  Just as, traditionally, Religious Sister Joan Smith is known as Sister Joan, not as Sister Smith - "Sister" is a title, not part of a name.  Just as, when John Smith is knighted, he is referred to as Sir John, not as Sir Smith - "Sir" is a title, not part of a name.  Just as with the Portuguese title for a bishop, "Dom", Dom João Pereira is known as Dom João, not as Dom Pereira - "Dom" is a title, not part of a name.  Whichever name, first name or family name, a title such as "Mar" is used with, it is still a title, not an additional name or part of a name.  Esoglou (talk) 19:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Mar is a kind of title different from Bishop and President; it is different from Father and Sister in that it is never used with the surname; the former two can be used with surname (or informally with the first name, when the first name suffices for identification). It is also different from Pope, which is a title, yet prefixed to a (newly adopted) first name, and where the surname is not used. Note that the wikipaedia articles on popes add the title Pope in the respective article names. (Sir is also a title, which is prefixed to the first name, even though there is a surname. But knights do not bear the title as a denotation of their committed vocations, at least in modern times. Dom is similar, and is not exclusively used for consecrated bishops.) Mar, in contrast, becomes part of the first name in a stronger sense than all these cases, and denotes commitment to a vocation rather than an office. If popes can have their titles prefixed to their article names, so can bishops in the Syriac system. It is also the practice in the Indian system across religions and churches, e.g., Mar Thoma I, Punnathara Mar Dionysious (Mar Thoma XI), Pulikkottil Joseph Mar Dionysious II, Geevarghese Mar Dionysius of Vattasseril, Gheevarghese Mar Gregorios of Parumala, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Aurobindo, Narayana Guru (a suffix), Maulana Mohammad Ali, etc. Karnan (talk) 21:59, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we must wait for input by others. I can only repeat that, whether attached to a person's first, middle or last name, "Mar" is a title, like "Sir", "Sister", "Cardinal", "Doctor", etc.  And you can only repeat that, unlike these other words, "Mar" is not a title but part of a person's name.  Esoglou (talk) 10:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Let us wait. To be very short, my position is that it is a kind of title which is very strongly attached to the first name as part of a vocation. (Informally it is best to think of it as becoming part of the first name, but that is not completely precise.) There are not much examples in Western contexts except for Sir and classical knighthood (not the modern version where a sense of vocation is lost) and Dom. In India there are a few other examples as I have quoted. Swami is reasonably well known and spmewhat similar. Karnan (talk) 17:11, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Are these Indian naming conventions documented anywhere you can show us? So far, we just have two conflicting personal opinions. Obviously, Google is no help with this issue, but some evidence would be nice. Relisting again. Andrewa (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no official dissertation that I know of on the naming conventions of religious figures (or, for that matter, people with a committed vocation) in a traditional Indian (or Eastern) context. In circles where these matter, the fact is trivial. Evidence can only be presented by examples. One would be hard pressed to find a single scholarly reference to many of the names quoted above without the titles. There should be better documentation for Syriac bishops, though again, the matter is usually taken for granted, it seems (I do not know about any official documentation for those either). The practice of using the common name should settle the issue (and I think, override the practice of avoiding the usual kind of titles like Professor, Doctor, etc.). I shall write again if I am able to find any references. Karnan (talk) 13:10, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia itself describes Mar not as a name, as a title "placed before the Christian name". The explanations given on this forum agree. And what is written in this forum also agrees. But let us turn to what Wikipedia classifies as reliable sources. This book says: "Mar is the Syrian title for bishop." Practically the same statement appears in this book: "Mar is a title given to the Syrian bishops, and is nearly equivalent to the word lord." This handbook to Syriac studies says: "Mor (or Mar) is an honorific title used both for bishops and for saints." Another book says: "Mar, literally 'My Lord', a usual title of ecclesiastics and saints. This title always occurs in the commentaries when the Commentary of Ephraem is referred to." This other states: "It was pointed out that the title 'Mar' or Saint is commonly used for prophets as well as saints (See above, p. 15. In the second Syriac inscription, Appendix I, the title is used for Bishop Diskoros)." Similar is the statement in this book: "Mali Hashiya is the transliteration of the Syriac Mari Hasia, which is a common title for a saint or bishop. Mali Hashiya, therefore, is not the name of a person but an additional title of Mar Solomon." All these sources speak of "Mar" as a title, not a name. It makes no difference where it is inserted. Whether associated with the first name or the second name, it is still a title.
 * Need I add that the title used by the Syrian Christians in India is of course a Syriac word? Esoglou (talk) 16:05, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I haven't checked any of these sources but will. But that's the idea!


 * On a related topic, it would be good to use these sources to improve the Mar article, which might justify removing the tag from it. That would be a much bigger improvement to Wikipedia than this proposed move! Andrewa (talk) 20:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have added the three best ones to the Mar article. I have also corrected a mis-pasting for the first of the books (a very old one) that I cited above. Esoglou (talk) 21:06, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, we now have some evidence, although two of the links are to open forums and there's no way of establishing the contributors' qualifications that I can see. But they do clearly identify Mar (also spelled Mor) as a title or honorific similar to Bishop or Pope. There is no specific naming convention that I can find, but Naming conventions (clergy) seems closest. There are still a few maybes! But there's evidence one way and not the other, so far.

Second issue: What of the many other articles that also use Mar as a title? Will this set a precedent for renaming all or at least many of these? If so, a heads-up at their talk pages would be a good thing. Andrewa (talk) 20:08, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The sources given are an over-kill. Even the three that I selected for insertion in the Mar article are more than enough.  "Mar" and "Mor" are different forms (East and West) of the same word in the Syriac language.  An analogy would be the different national pronunciations of the English word "progress" with an "o" either as in "cold" or as in "hot".
 * The question here is whether the addition, without previous discussion, of "Mar" into the title of this one particular article should be undone. That can be decided without first making a decision on the more general question that you raise.
 * On this more general question, I think that, in line with what has been decided with regard to cardinals (and indeed for ecclesiastics in general, whose names are, with few exceptions (Popes are one exception, but that is perhaps an office rather than a title) given in the titles of articles without "Archbishop", "Most Reverend", "Venerable" etc.), "Mar" should not appear in the title of articles about individuals who have that title. Would you raise this general question in some appropriate place?  I have altered the opening words of this article to show how "Mar" can be kept in the body of an article that does not have "Mar" in the title of the article.  Esoglou (talk) 21:10, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Naming conventions (clergy) does indeed read cardinals generally go by their full name (both first name and surname) alone, without the title "Cardinal", as "Ascanio Sforza", not "Cardinal Ascanio Sforza", nor "Ascanio Cardinal Sforza". The common, almost universal, practice is however to show a fuller name in the lead than in the title, not just for cardinals but for all biographical articles, see Ascanio Sforza or Billy Graham for example. So there's no requirement to drop the Mar in the article text just because we drop it in the article title. Andrewa (talk) 03:04, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Support the move to remove Mar from the article title. A good case is made above. Other similar article titles ahould also be moved in due course, as the case is more widely applicable. Andrewa (talk) 03:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Decline I stand by the arguments I have made above. Would also like to remark that my stance on the meaning of Mar (for which a few refs have been supplied above since my last entry) and the strength of affinity it bears to the first name (which still has only evidence by example, which supports my position of very strong affinity) has not changed. In addition to the convention on popes I had drawn attention to, the convention for patriarchs Naming conventions (clergy) too may be noted here. I affirm the pivotal value of Indian religious conventions for bishops of Indian churches, irrespective of whether they have traces of Syriac, Latin, or other external influences (which do not subsume the individuality of the Indian churches). Karnan (talk) 19:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Being a pope or a patriarch is an office. "Holiness", "Beatitude", "Eminence", etc. are titles.  "Mar" is a title, not an office.   Esoglou (talk) 20:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I rephrase the rationale for the change:
 * "Mar" is a title used in the Syrian tradition (both Oriental Orthodox and Catholic) for bishops and archbishops, it is not part of the ecclesiastic's name. The article Mar states, citing reliable sources, that "Mar" is a title "placed before the Christian name". The Wikipedia rule for Western bishops and archbishops is "For bishops and archbishops in the Western world, do not use their episcopal or archiepiscopal title in the article name unless necessary for disambiguation". For Eastern Orthodox archbishops and bishops "the form {name} of {place} is often used, as with Anthony of Sourozh and Gabriel of Comane. In other cases name and surname are used, as in Kallistos Ware."  For Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic bishops and archbishops, a similar practice should surely be used.  Esoglou (talk) 21:06, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

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