Orthodox and Jacobite factions face-off at Kothamangalam Church

Tension prevailed in Kothamangalam on Monday after a large number of Jacobite faction priests and followers prevented those belonging to the Orthodox faction from entering a church here to take its possession as per a Supreme Court order.

Kothamangalam: A tense face-off prevailed at the Kothamangalam Marthoma Church as hundreds of Jacobite faction members are resisting the implementation of the SC verdict of 2017 in the 100-year-old Malankara church dispute.

According to the verdict of the SC in 2017, the churches in Malankara have to be governed under the 1934 constitution. The court also said that parallel administration in Malankara Churches should end.

The Kothamangalam Marthoma Church is a historic church in Kerala and both the faction lay claim to it. It is also among the prestigious churches in Malankara with a huge membership.

The Jacobites have been in control of the church and claim that the majority of the members are from the Jacobite faction.

Thomas Paul Ramban, the priest appointed by the Orthodox faction, has been trying to take over the administrative duties of the church ever since the 2017 SC verdict.

Jacobites have been holding protests against his entry. This time Thomas Paul Ramban has asked for police protection to enter the church.

The police have asked the Jacobites to vacate the premises and cooperate with them to implement the court verdict.

The over 100-year-old dispute

The dispute that traces to 1912 had seen a series of SC orders from 1958, 1995 and 2017 which held that only valid priests appointed by the Malankara Metropolitan of the Orthodox faction can govern the parish churches in Malankara in accordance with an elected Parish assembly.

Last month, the Jacobite faction were vacated from Piravom Church.

The Orthodox argue that the Jacobites had formed their own separate trust and had moved out of the Malankara Church after they held an association in Puthenkurishu in 2002 and formulated their own constitution.

The court in its judgment observed that when a group breaks away from a trust, it cannot carry the properties or lay claim to the existing properties of the trust, thus the Orthodox faction obtained a favourable ruling in this regard claiming the Jacobite faction to be the breakaway faction of the church.

The Jacobites hold that the supreme head of the church is the Lebanon based Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II while the Orthodox faction says the spiritual head of the entire Malankara Syrian Church is the Catholicos Baselios Marthoma Paulose II based in Kottayam.