Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete and redirect to Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of St. Thomas of Chicago. Black Kite (talk) 21:37, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church

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Fails WP:GNG. No sources currently in the article. A Guy into Books (talk) 14:24, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. A Guy into Books (talk) 14:24, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. A Guy into Books (talk) 14:24, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:23, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Pennsylvania-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:23, 7 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment "No sources"? Meaning there are no inline citations in the current article?  That may be, but that is not a reason for deletion.  For one reason, it has two external links which could be the sources;  it is not required that wikipedia articles have citations included in them, only that sources exist.  wp:BEFORE should be performed before nomination of an article for deletion.  And, browsing a bit (including "Philadelphia" in the search but omitting the quotes forcing exact match on the entire phrase) I find some mentions, e.g. in  this book on Christian Pluralism mentioning community of 35 families in Philadelphia and another source about Keralites.  A parish/church founded in 1983 could possibly be notable.  It is sort of odd that it is part of a Chicago diocese.  On the other hand, it doesn't seem necessary to split the topic out from the diocese article;  it could be merged/redirected back perhaps.  Or just kept, doing no harm. -- do  ncr  am  19:07, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Also there is some info at a "Parish / History" page of the church and also at the Home page of the church (scroll down to see its "About" section). -- do ncr  am  19:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should have been more specific, I have updated the nomination, this church is far to new for the building to have any notability, it appears to be one of some unknown large number of similar buildings to house the "There are altogether 4,018,204 (4 million) Syro-Malabarians within the 31 Syro-Malabar Eparchies and approximately 585,900 members live as migrants outside any Syro-Malabar Eparchy. There are 58 Bishops, 8547 priests (3,556 diocesan and 4,991 religious), and 32,114 women religious and 1214 major seminarians." and "The Syro-Malabar Church runs 4860 educational, 262 ecclesiastical and 2614 health and charitable institutions." []. I still see no indication it meets WP:GNG and since I don't speak fluent catholic, I'm not going into detail to find where it could be merged to, I will infact leave that to someone who understands what a 'Eparchy' is. A Guy into Books (talk) 19:52, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It looks like the eparchy is effectively a diocese. By merge back to the diocese article, I was meaning to the eparchy, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of St. Thomas of Chicago.  Some summary info could be added in a sentence or two there, giving the address and the year of founding (1983?) and a bit more.  None of the other items have any summary info, but that's okay, this could be the first one.  Oddly, the eparchy article doesn't link to the St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church page!  Instead, it provides an external link to the syromalabarphila.org website.  Merging to the eparchy article looks okay to me, or keeping and allowing it to be developed where it lies.  Note, a church article is about both the congregation and its building(s);  a church can be notable for its congregation/activity alone.  There are some facts available from the church website, but importance is not established and we still don't have any other substantial sources about anything. -- do  ncr  am  02:38, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Merge or redirect to the diocesan article. As a rather ordinary church, though of an unusual denomination, having a free-standing article on a local church congregation is not appropriate, absent of some particular notability.  If kept, a place should be added to the article title.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:03, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per a major practical issue: this would probably be the most common name for any parish in that sui iuris Church, considering that they are the largest group of Saint Thomas Christians. A quick Google search seems to confirm my suspicions here. It would be very confusing for an Anglophone in India to type in the name of their local parish and be redirect to an eparchy in Chicago. If a merge is needed, we can just mention it in the diocesan article without much need to expand on the Philly specific content, so there wouldn't be a need to keep the history. Pinging since neither of you seem as familiar with Saint Thomas Christianity, I thought this might be relevant to both of your reasoning (no pressure to change, but I thought it relevant to bring up). TonyBallioni (talk) 20:32, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  J 947(c) (m) 20:14, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. If a Catholic parish, typically it is notable enough per WP:BOLD, if you only add some available sources. Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:36, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Reply - I know enough of St Thomas Christians to be able to comment as I did. My objection was that it is unusual for a local congregation to be large enough to merit an article of its own.  The normal outcome would be to merge a summary with something else, an article on the place where it is or its diocese, in this case eparchy.  If others think the church significant enough for an article to be kept, it should be renamed to St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Philadelphia.  Perhaps, in view of its distance from Chicago, that may be the better solution.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:12, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure if you were, which was why I pinged. Its definitely not notable enough for its own article in my mind: recentish creation, no historical building, etc. Looks to be a pretty standard Syro-Malabar parish. My concern here is that a redirect from this title to the eparchy would simply confuse readers. If it were moved to the redlink title you suggested, and then redirected, It could be useful. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:53, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jdcomix (talk) 17:20, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * delete What is said in the article is basic parish history stuff, and contra various claims, individual parishes are not presumed notable. Mangoe (talk) 18:22, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not all churches are notable, and this fails my standards. If it's still around in 2083, then we can re-consider the issue at that time. Bearian (talk) 00:56, 1 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.