The Orthodox faction of the Malankara Church, led by bishop Mathews Mar Severios of the Kandanad West diocese, celebrated Mass at the St. Mary’s Church on Sunday, marking a major development over the last 45 years of dispute between the church groups.
“It is a historic moment since the Malankara church factions went their separate ways in 1974,” said an Orthodox church member on Sunday after the Mass that marked the implementation of a Supreme Court verdict in July 2017, handing over control over Malankara parishes to the Orthodox group.
The Orthodox group entered the church and celebrated the Mass with police protection.
The Kandanad church is a historic one for the Malankara church as a whole and over the last four decades services had been conducted on alternate weeks.
If the Orthodox group celebrated Mass on a particular Sunday, the space was allotted to the Jacobite group for the following Sunday.
Ritual necessities like burial and marriages were conducted according to the turn allotted to the two factions, church sources said.
The Orthodox group maintained on Sunday that the Supreme Court verdict paved the way for permanent peace but a spokesman for the Jacobite group said that the parishioners could not be “expelled” and that a referendum should decide as to who would be the custodian of the church property.
Protest
A large number of the Jacobite church members has gathered before the Kandanad church as a sign of protest at the church premises while the the police are keeping a vigil.
The Jacobite group has repeatedly raised the demand that there should be a consensus on protection of the church property through a consensus among the parishioners.
Meanwhile, the the Jacobite faction, led by Catholicos Baselios Thomas I, will go ahead with a 12-hour fast on Tuesday.
The fast is against “denial of justice” to the Jacobite group, said the group spokesman bishop Kuriakose Theophelos.