Kerala's Church War Brimmeth Over - Ugly Row Over Funeral Rites, Worship Singe Peace

It바카라�s called the fianchetto: a chess manoeuvre that positions a bishop on the second rank square vacated by an advanced knight바카라�s pawn so as to open up a flank on the long diagonal that offers a direct line of attack to the opponent바카라�s castle. Similar salvos are being fired across Kerala as the century-old internecine conflict bet­ween the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC) and the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church (Jacobites) app­ears to have entered another phase in a series of protrac­ted endgames.

Vicars and priests바카라�armed with the July 3, 2017, Supreme Court order that upheld the Malankara Church바카라�s 1934 constitu­t­ion and granted MOSC sole custodianship of some 1,100 parishes, properties, churches and coffers바카라�have, under police protection, entered previously impregnable bastions of the faith over the past month. In the churchyard, as on the chessboard, one defence involves putting up pawn blockades바카라�a tactic that has enj­o­yed varying success over the past two years, due in part to the state government바카라�s dithering and 바카라�tinkering바카라� with the SC order by the Kerala High Court. However, after two dressing-­do­wns in the space of three months, the first of which saw the apex court ask in July whether the state was above the rule of law, even human barricades have not sufficed.

Atop a hillock by the Muvattupuzha river, the sixth-century St. Mary바카라�s Jaco­bite Syrian Cathedral in Piravom바카라�a pilgrimage town straddling Ernakulam and Kottayam districts that, according to legend, was home to Caspar, one of the three magi in the nativity story바카라�looks the fortress its high battlements make it out to be. Last December, hundreds of Jacobites repelled a MOSC attempt to enter the church after a section of the faithful threatened to jump from the ramparts. On September 26, with the district administration on the scene, the police took cutters to the fleur-de-lis-lined wrought iron gates and evicted nearly 400 protestors, among them a dozen senior bishops and priests, who promptly courted arrest. As the MOSC vicar occupied the church바카라�some 3,000 parishioner families which identify as Jacobites as opposed to about 200 Orthodox families바카라�the town shuttered down for a day-long hartal. When Outlook visited, Piravom wore a deserted look, as an asymmetrically strong police deployment바카라�mobilised in full riot gear바카라�watc­hed over the first Sunday mass (Sep­­te­mber 29) since the takeover. Their presence is crucial to the fragile peace.

For seventy-something Elsie Jacob Mat­hew, a Piravom native who had been unable to worship at the 바카라�Valiya­pally바카라� (principal church) since her mar­riage into a Pathanamthitta district-based Ort­hodox family over five decades ago, the experience was bittersweet. 바카라�I never tho­­ught I would be able to pray here in my lifetime. It바카라�s a blessing. Growing up, the church used to be a place where we could all come together. Like most people, I had both Orthodox and Jacobite family members. It바카라�s sad how things have changed,바카라� she says, pointing to a roadside chapel where a significantly bigger Jacobite congregation was attending a makeshift Sunday service. After a letter of solidarity from the Patriarch of Antioch, Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, the Jacobite spiritual head, was read out, the gathering took out a march to the town square. On October 2, several thousands more marched on Deva­lokam in Kottayam, where MOSC is headquartered, shouting slogans against the 바카라�denial of justice바카라�.

Now, the remonstrating din has begun to crescendo, feeding into a broader call to protect the faith. Since the first domino바카라�the St. Peter and St. Paul바카라�s church in Kolenchery town, the immediate focal point of the SC verdict바카라�fell without a fight in the wake of the ruling, the conflict had conformed to a pattern. MOSC representatives with police escorts would arrive to occupy a church. The Jacobites would refuse to vacate and be forcibly rem­oved. A tense stand-off would ensue, with both camps issuing press statements. The district administration plays a negotiating role. Before the broken padlocks and stoic cassocks in Piravom dominated headlines, the fourth-century St. Mary바카라�s Orthodox Syrian Cathedral, 15 km away in Kandanad, was the site of one such tus­sle. There, the situation deteriorated to the extent that the cathedral had to be closed on September 8. Two weeks later, the police had to hold back Jacobite protestors attempting to disrupt the first out-of-turn Orthodox Sunday service in 45 years. Over that time, the factions had conducted services on alternate weeks바카라�as part of a wider peace-keeping measure that had seen, in some parishes, the rise of parallel administrations.

바카라�The SC order made it unequivocally clear that the rules inscribed in the 1934 constitution are paramount. Hence­forth, the constitution will govern the administration of the parishes. It has put paid to the system of parallel vicars and committees that had been plaguing our churches,바카라� said Fr. Johns Abraham Konat, the MOSC spokesperson. His Jac­obite counterpart, Metropolitan Kur­iakose Mor Theophi­l­ose, echoed the need to safeguard against flare-ups, but has said that conducting referendums among parishioners on the adm­inistration of church properties (which includes chapels, hospitals, colle­ges, schools, cemeteries and seminaries, among other assets) would lead to the most expeditious and satisfactory resolution. But MOSC now has little incentive to go for any such rapprochement.

Partisan intransigence has informed much of the conflict, which dates back to a schism in 1912 wherein MOSC bec­ame an autocephalous church with the Catholicos of the East (now housed in Kottayam) as the head of the faith and separated from the faction that considers the Patriarch of Antioch (whose See is in Damascus) the final authority. Beyond that, little by way of liturgy, tradition and theology separates the two groups. They even have roughly the same number of adherents in Kerala. The two groups briefly reunited in 1958, but it didn바카라�t last. The separation was formalised in 2002, with the creation of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, based out of  Puthen­cruz, Ernakulam district and adopting its own constitution바카라�setting off a spate of violence across traditional Christian strongholds in south and central Kerala over control of individual churches. At present, the turf war is contained to around 200 churches바카라�the ownerships of which are bitterly contested despite the SC order.

The 2017 verdict is the most recent of four judgments by the apex court that have all upheld the 1934 constitution바카라�a dispute settlement instrument to which both factions are signatories. The order also reiterated an observation from the 1995 ruling that the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch had reached a 바카라�vanishing point바카라� in the tem­­poral, ecclesiastical and spiritual duties of the Jaco­bite faction. It added a new wrinkle too: the Jacobites could become an indepen­dent entity with new properties, ret­urn to MOSC fold as a sub-sect, or disband entirely. Since then, a number of petitions calling on the apex court to reconsider its decision have been filed and summarily dismissed.

While the conflict intensified after 2017, uglier still has been the issue of the denial of/delay in burial permission as corpses of parishioners become sites of protest themselves. Both factions accuse each other of refusing to allow the funeral rites to be conducted if the priest performing the rites belongs to the rival faction. In one instance, a Jacobite parishioner decided to donate his mother바카라�s body for medical research rather than be denied a burial in the cemetery at the St. John바카라�s Jacobite Syrian Church in Kanniattunirappu, Ernakulam. The church, now under Orthodox control, had threatened to exhume the body of a recently-deceased Jacobite man on the charge that the vicar바카라�s authority had been subverted.

바카라�We are being prevented from giving our faithful a dignified burial in our own churches. In that instance, our people were not allowed to enter the threshold of the cemetery. The 2017 judgment has affected us terribly. Our people are being thrown out of churches they have prayed at for hundreds of years,바카라� Mor Theophilose said. Fr. Konat said in a statement: 바카라�The Orthodox faction has not obstructed any funeral rites. The cemetery is no one바카라�s personal asset. Family members must seek the vicar바카라�s permission to conduct funerals. The SC order has said no to any parallel policy regarding cemeteries.바카라�

Among the aggrieved is Fr. Thomas Paul Ramban, the MOSC-appointed vicar to the disputed St. Thomas Cheriya­pally바카라�under Jacobite control바카라�in Kotha­mang­alam. He wrote a Face­book post about his mother바카라�s funeral being interrupted in 2018 and of being barred from visiting his father바카라�s grave. Last year, Fr. Ramban decided to take a stand after rep­ortedly being threatened by the Jacobites holed up in the church. Besides being one of the wealthiest churches, Cheriyapally also houses the remains of the venerated saint Baselios Yeldo. After the fall of Piravom, Cheriya­pally has bec­ome an Alamo of sorts. On October 6, the power of faith as force multiplier was evinced in a major show of strength, as thousands of Jacobites re-enacted the historic Coonan Cross oath to reaffirm their commitment to the 바카라�throne of St. Peter in Antioch바카라�바카라�harking back to the hugely symbolic 1653 pledge in front of a tilted cross in Mattancherry, Kochi, wherein the St. Thomas Christians rej­ected papal authority and imposed Latin liturgy in favour of a return to the older Orthodox Church. On a board hitherto dominated by captured castles, bishops, chevaliers and undercut pawns, the second 바카라�Oath of the Bent Cross바카라� might well amount to a 바카라�cross-check바카라�. At the very least, as Basil Unnithan, one of the oath-takers, said, 바카라�We needed something to keep the faith.바카라�

By Siddharth Premkumar in Kochi