Kerala HC dismisses appeals by state and Jacobite Church, asks Collectors to take over six churches
Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Thursday dismissed appeals filed by the state government and Jacobite Christians challenging a single-judge bench’s order directing District Collectors to take possession of six churches embroiled in the Orthodox-Jacobite Church dispute.
The Division Bench also pointed out that the directive under challenge was passed in a contempt case and intended to prevent the violation of earlier orders. The single judge had acted within the boundaries of law, it added.
It was in August that the single-judge bench ordered the District Collectors of Ernakulam and Palakkad to take possession of six disputed churches where the obstruction persisted.
Incidentally, the apex court in its final verdict in 2017, gave the Orthodox faction the right to administer 1,100 churches and parishes under the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and said that there was no ground for the Jacobites to claim any of the churches.
A non-Catholic Christian community in Kerala, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, has two factions – the majority Orthodox, who have their headquarters in Kottayam, and the Jacobites, who consider the Patriarch of Antioch in Beirut (Lebanon) as their supreme leader. The community first split into Orthodox and Jacobite in 1912, but came together in Kottayam for a brief period between 1958 and 1970 following a Supreme Court ruling.
Since 1970, they have been at war over control of churches. After decades spent in trial, the apex court gave its final verdict in 2017. Consequent to this, the Orthodox faction has been taking control over churches hitherto run by the Jacobite faction. While by now the Orthodox faction has taken over a few churches on directions from the High Court after the police were given specific instructions, in some churches, the Jacobite faction has been unrelenting.
Now all eyes are on the two District Collectors and on how the Jacobite faction will act when the rule of law is enforced.