Kolencherry: Catholicos Baselios Marthoma Paulose II, head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (the Orthodox faction of the Malankara Church), led a Mass at the St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s church at Kolencherry on July 9.
Bishops Mathews Mar Severios and Mathews Mar Theodosius were concelebrants. Church secretary Mathew Oommen was among those who attended the Mass.
The Catholicos was accorded a reception by the Orthodox Church followers at the historic Kolencherry church on Saturday.
The Mass was celebrated on the first Sunday after the Supreme Court of India ruled that the 1935 constitution of the Malankara Church should be followed and that the Jacobite faction had no right to offer prayers at the disputed churches, The Hindu reported.
The verdict had come in a case related to the Kolencherry Church and that of St. Mary’s Churches at Mannathur and Varikkoli.
Meanwhile, the Synod of the Jacobite faction of the Malankara Church will be held at the Patriarchal Centre, Puthenkurisu, on Monday.
Jacobite Synod
The Synod will be led by Catholicos Baselios Thomas I. A delegation of the Jacobite Church had met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram last week to express its views on the Supreme Court verdict.
The Orthodox group has demanded that the government implement the court verdict.