Hearing a long-standing dispute between 2 Christian factions, the Kerala High Court on 30th August ordered that six churches currently held by the Jacobite faction must be given to the state government. The District Collectors of Ernakulam and Palakkad have been ordered to seize the churches that are at the centre of a protracted conflict between the Jacobite and Orthodox groups of Malankara Christians. Two vicars (petitioners) from the Orthodox group filed a contempt petition and the court issued an order in response.
Due to interference by Jacobite parishioners, Justice VG Arun chastised the flagrant disobedience of the Court’s 2022 directives to allow members of the Malankara Orthodox Church (Orthodox faction) to enter and calmly perform worship services at the churches. The judge stated that he had no choice but to demand that the District Collectors assume control of these churches. “The recalcitrant attitude of the official respondents and disregard of the directions by the party respondents (Jacobite faction members) leaves this court with no option but to issue directions for preventing the contemptuous acts,” the bench chastised.
St. Mary’s Orthodox Church in Odakkali, St. John’s Besphage Orthodox Syrian Church in Pulinthanam and St. Thomas Orthodox Syrian Church in Mazhuvannoor under the Angamaly diocese are directed to be turned over to the District Collector of Ernakulam by the court. St. Mary’s Orthodox Church at Mangalam Dam, St. Mary’s Orthodox Syrian Church at Erickinchira and St. Thomas Orthodox Syrian Church at Cherukunnam were ordered to be taken over by the district collector of Palakkad. The churches are under the Thrissur diocese. The state government was previously directed by the Supreme Court to assume management of these churches, but it did not comply.
Justice V J Arun issued the temporary injunction and gave the police instructions to provide the necessary protection. The court ruled that “the district collectors have to keep the keys of the churches.” Furthermore, the court ordered the district police chiefs to assign adequate police force to assist the district collectors in carrying out the directives as soon as possible. The next hearing date for the case is 30th September and both Collectors have been instructed to submit compliance reports by then.
On 8th July, the police were ordered by the court to formulate a clear plan of action and execute it. Regretfully, the court stated, that approach has been ignored. The opposing parties in the case claimed that the judge believed the court had ordered the handover of the church’s possession to the Orthodox faction in the 2017 order. The very provision of police protection to allow the petitioners to access the churches is based on incorrect premises, and that ruling makes no mention of such a directive.
According to the state authorities, a large number of elderly men, women and children who were Jacobite parishioners were blocking the church’s entrance. It further claimed that despite its best attempts to follow out the court’s orders, it was compelled to back down because of intense protests by Jacobites. The court was informed that additional state intervention could result in fatalities. The Jacobite group’s representatives in court argued that the 2022 decree was issued incorrectly and that the church could not be turned over to the Orthodox faction. However, their arguments were dismissed.
The government cannot be found in contempt, according to Additional Advocate General Ashok M. Cherian, because serious steps were taken to execute the ruling and the police were compelled to leave the area after widespread unrest on the church grounds. According to the court, they are unable to pretend not to know the instructions after impeding the police’s pitiful attempts at enforcement. The court also suo motu impleaded the district collectors in the case as respondents.
The court highlighted, “Disobedience of court orders strikes at the root of the rule of law on which the judicial system rests. If conduct which tends to bring the authority of the court and the administration of law to disrepute is allowed to be perpetuated that will result in the entire system being maligned. It is the bounden duty of every court to uphold the majesty of law and maintain the purity of the system. The law is equally applicable to the mighty and the meek, the powerful and the powerless and has to be applied without fear or favour, prejudice or predilection.”
Background of the controversy
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church have been at odds for a long time over the management of church property and leadership roles. This conflict is known as the Orthodox-Jacobite church dispute in Kerala and began in the early 20th century. It has grown more intense over time, resulting in court cases and physical altercations.
The Orthodox and Jacobite groups once belonged to a single church, but they eventually drifted apart amid disagreements about to whom the church should be loyal. The Jacobite faction regarded the Patriarch of Antioch as its spiritual authority, whereas the Orthodox faction swore allegiance to a Bishop in Kerala (Malankara Metropolitan). Conflicts then erupted on who in Kerala had the right to run certain churches. The Supreme Court was eventually involved in this controversy.
In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Orthodox church on several disputes by citing the 1934 Constitution. The highest court further held that a 2002 statement drafted by the Jacobite group could not have established a parallel system of governance for the churches. Since then, nevertheless, the Orthodox group has always protested that the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling has not been executed. Based on one of these arguments, a single judge of the High Court in 2022 ordered the police to give the petitioners, the Orthodox faction, the support they need to enter and hold religious services in the contested churches in a peaceful manner.
The Orthodox petitioners filed the current contempt petition with the High Court to seek redress once more since the competing Jacobite parishioners were still preventing them from entering the churches. A single judge of the high court granted a request on one of these instances in 2022, ordering the police to give the petitioners—the Orthodox faction—the support they need to enter and hold services in some disputed churches in a peaceful manner. Justice Arun dismissed the Jacobite respondents’ objections to their request for a stay of further court action, challenging if the court should remain silent when its orders were being ignored. The judge declared, “Such disrespectful acts would malign the entire judicial system.”
