MGOCSM's Service Motto

MGOCSM’s Service Motto

Mar Gregorios Orthodox Christian Student Movement of the Indian Syrian Christian Orthodox Church is the oldest Christian Student Movement of Asia. For MGOCSM, service essentially mean service to the needs of fellow students. Hence giving them educational aids, scholarships and providing educational infrastructure are important types of services. Other forms of alleviation of felt needs of students and the poor in the society are also warranted service to be done by Christian students.

The World is now on a fast track of
1. overpopulation,
2. destruction of man’s habitat and eco-system through over consumption by the rich, and
3. Increasing inequality in the income distribution and wealth between rich and poor individuals, regions and nations.

These trends started to emerge with the Helsinki International conference of 1974. It called for a paradigm shift from government initiated Keynesian demand management economic policies intended to sustain full employment, to increase in World productivity through free trade and globalization. The growth of IT industry and interconnectivity of the World enabled outsourcing of production stages and processes resulting in phenomenal rise in production and income throughout the World.

Free trade and globalization decreased poverty, but increased the inequality. The market system could not help the skewing up of income into the hands of the few rich and accentuation of the inequality and the injustice of it. Hence inclusion of all in the process of economic development is the modern cliché.

Population explosion has proved to be a manageable menace as proved by the European experience and the Kerala and Tamil Nadu achievements over the last 3 to 4 decades. Even the destruction of ecosystem will be tamed when man go through more bad global warming, water scarcity and air pollution. But the increasing inequality is not such a controllable evil. World Bank Report of Mac Namara at the end of Second World War to the latest UNO Development Reports, made the clarion call to the rich and developed countries to set apart a small portion of their domestic product for development of the Under Developed Countries and eradication of world poverty. But it had no effect so far.

In the ultimate analysis the inequality between individuals, geographical regions or nations must get reduced for the wellbeing of mankind. Man cannot be happy when his fellowmen are suffering. He cannot go to Heaven without them.World sustainability demands alleviation and abolition of poverty and inequality.Governmental prescriptions and rules cannot solve this issue of increasing inequality. The mind of man must get changed. No wonder that all religions evangelize that service of one’s neighbour is serving God. In other words practice of Universal brotherhood of man is recognition of the Universal fatherhood of God.

The skewing up of income into the hands of the very few in the World are so blatant and unpardonable that it is the duty all governments, corporations, NGOs and individuals to fight against this malady...
The richest 5% of the World’s people have incomes 114 times those of the poorest 5%*
20% of the population in the developed nations consumes 85% of the World’s goods*

It is knowledge that makes a man free to withstand all kinds of discrimination to pursue his own income and happiness. So providing education to all is important. Illiterate and poor should not be there in the society to be discriminated, excluded or marginalized by others from the main stream. Giving educational scholarship hence is the important service that MGOCSM can and does perform. In fact in recent years MGOCSM has taken up this work in a massive manner. It is hoped that in due course the funds at the disposal of MGOCSM to give educational scholarships to the needy in the society will assume higher proportions to make service motto more significant than others.
* UNO-Human development report 2002
* UNO- World development report 2000/2001

Persecution of Christians

The Christian message from early times was the equality of man before God. For God, any man is equal to any other. There is no distinction from the have s and have-nots. This is a primordial social order when men lived in indepedant caves with their spouses and members of the family. Even in such a primary social level, there was a division of labour and a division of power . The men used to employ their physical strength to procure food for the family. the women used to tend it and give it to all the members. The children , being the weakest used to be obedient observers and learners of the ways of the clan. This division of labour and power only strengthed the unity of the group as there was always a family elder or clan leader.

Over the course of time this social order gave place to larger social units brought into being by the mightier overpowering the weaker and smaller groups and bringing them under their control and command . This lead to a wider division of labour. Those who had better genetical endowments or greater physical prwoess aquired in life's engagements used to be given suitable work by the clan leader, while the less endowed were given the lesser or meaner work and jobs. This in course of time lead to more pwerful and less powerful in the social group.

With the emergence of trade and commerce and use of money the more powerful became the haves and the others the have-nots. Industrialisation and more division of labour aggravated the distinction between th rich and the poor The haves accumulated wealth and became more rich and the others comaparatively very poor. The more powerful rich started exploiting the brawn of the poor by giving them the lowest wages possible. The extra profits thus earned enriched the cffers of the rich to make them still more richer. The rich thus accumulated capital. Use of all forms of capital and mechanisation by these rich accentuated the gulf between the rich and the poor. Thus ineqality and exploitation and marginalisation of the poor becam the order of modern civilsation.


Recently in Orissa there was a communal flare-up and the have-nots a and their leaders and Christian teachers and priests were attacked. It was a local rebellion of the rich against the poor. The State and the police turned away their eyes on the pretext that it is a communal issue.The poor illiterate farm workers in the villages were persecuted by the communal zealots on the ruse that by becoming Xians they will be removed from the farms where they were working formerly.The land Lords used to employ them on their farms and give them the minimum wages. In other words the "haves" were exploiting the poor 'have-nots" by compelling them to work on their farms at low wages.

Christanity teaches equality of man . The land lords fear that if the workers imbibe that spirit of equality, they may revolt against the exploiatative aspects in their work conditions and there may arise a demand for better terms in work conditions. In other words the upper class communal zealots feared that the Christian message of equality and freedom will deprive them of the cheap labour they used to get from these "have-nots". So they wanted to prevent the Christan missionaries working in their villages and making the down-trodden aware of their social and economic exploitation by the rich. This was the basic reason of the recent riots in Orissa. The communal colour given to the riots was a ruse to mask the real economic reason behind the destruction of churches and attacks on the poor. The communal colour will make it more appealing to the hindu majority in the locality. In fact the communal colour made even the Orrisa Government elusive in suppressing the riot and massacre.