Thiruvananthapuram: A powerful Church group in Kerala says the state’s new government has ended its political orphanage.
”We now feel that we are no longer political orphans which we were under the previous government,” said Baselios Marthoma Paulose II, the head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.
The prelate said this on June 12 after meeting Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Part of India (Marxist) that heads the Left Democratic Front government that assumed power on June 1.
“We have wished the new chief minister the very best and have given him our support,” the Church leader said after the meeting
The Orthodox bishop’s remarks are seen as a hard-hitting message to his own church member and former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
Chandy reportedly had tense relations with his Church leaders when he was in office from 2011 to 2016.
The main cause of the strain was the Church’s tussle with the Jacobite faction of what was once the united Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.