By Matters India Reporter
Kochi: The head of Kerala-based Jacobite Church has apologized for the insulting remarks made by one of his bishops against the fishermen community.
“With great pain I listened to the speech of our Bishop Mar Athanasios. We are really sorry that it did hurt our dear community and its leaders and also us as a Church,” Jacobite metropolitan trustee Joseph Mar Gregorios said in his apology.
The December 15 apology was issued after Archbishop Maria Calist Soosa Pakiam of Trivandrum Latin Archdiocese protested Bishop Athanasios’ remarks.
The speech made the bishop on December 13 outside the Piravom St Mary’s Church had gone viral on social media. It showed the bishop saying that the men at the church were not parishioners but fishermen from coastal regions who were brought here after being baptized. He said that they don’t know how to make the sign of the cross or to respond to prayers properly.
Archbishop Pakiam wrote to the Jacobite Church asking how fishermen became part of the tussle between the Orthodox and Jacobite factions of the Malankara Church.
The Catholic archbishop was referring to a century-old dispute between the Jacobite and Orthodox factions over the ownership of 1,100 parishes and their churches and properties belonging to the Syrian church. The Supreme Court in 2017 gave the Orthodox group control over these parishes and churches.
The Catholic archbishop wrote that it would be good to introspect on whether to become a witness to Christ in society by bearing the cross or by making the sign of the cross. “Should we be witnesses to Christ by boasting about the knowledge on how to cross oneself or by bearing the cross like the fishermen who suffer oppression and insults like these,” the archbishop wrote.
Metropolitan Gregorios’ apology was intended to avoid a possible rift between the two prominent Christian denominations in Kerala, southern India.
The metropolitan said he spoke to the bishop, who apologized for the words he used out of ignorance. “It was nothing deliberate intended to insult the community but a big human error as I understood. Please do understand and forgive us,” Mar Gregorios responded.
Bishop Athanasios later issued a video message in which he apologized for his earlier statements. He said that his statement was a mistake and was not intentional.
“I was not supposed to use those words, but it happened, it was a mistake. I express my regrets in the pain that it has caused and I apologize for the same. I request you to move past this and to remember me as well in your prayers,” the bishop said in the video message.