Should Indians become Romans or Syrians in dress, customs, government, worship and thought, in order to become Jesus' disciples? How far should the Church's past, however rich and multicoloured, determine its present and its future? To what extent should the past, if at all, serve as a paradigm for the future? The Church is confronted with a situation, so radically different from anything it experienced before that a mere adaptation or reform of traditional ecclesio-logy is likely to prove ineffective. Nothing less than a radical transformation is necessary.