Thiruvananthapuram: With differences between Orthodox and Jacobite factions in widening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will talk to both groups to find a lasting solution to some issues, said Mizoram Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai.
The governor, also hailing from Kerala, said he had briefed the prime minister about all issues and sought his intervention to help solve them. He said leaders of both factions will be met separately and later ta joint meeting will be called. Pillai also said he will also discuss the issue with Home Minister Amit Shah.
The growing friction between the two factions has invited enough embarrassment for the community and often created big law and order problems in the state. Earlier Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also tried to broker peace between two but failed to make much headway as both sides stuck to their stands.
“There is a complaint that central funds for minority welfare are not distributed proportionately between different communities in the state. The Church has been raising its concern in this regard for quite some time. So the PM will hear their woes also,” Pillai said.
All denominations of the Church have welcomed the latest development.
“We hope the PM’s intervention will help us get justice,” said Jacobite church trustee Joseph Mar Gregorios. “We are ready to go by any agreement that is bound by law of the land and decision of the apex court,” said Orthodox Church secretary Biju Oommen. Recently, a tiff between the two spilled over to the streets inviting enough embarrassment for believers.
Jacobites and Orthodox denominations of the Malankara Syrian Church have been fighting for the control of 2000- odd churches and their rich coffers for more than two decades. In 2017, the Supreme Court had upheld the 1934 constitution of Malankara church and gave the Orthodox group control over more than 1000 parishes and churches in Kerala but Jacobites, who were controlling majority of these shrines, were not ready to give up. Orthodox is an indigenous group but Jacobites have more followers.
The Malankara Syrian church has two factions– Orthodox, which is headquartered in Kottayam, and Jacobites, who consider the Patriarch of Antioch, based in Beirut, as their supreme leader. Both factions differ in their leadership but they share the same rites of worship and have a long-standing rivalry that goes back to 1912, when the Malankara church split into two, Orthodox and Jacobites.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pm-modi-to-talk-to-kerala-church-leaders-to-sort-out-issues-says-mizoram-governor/story-aDXm3n25LRlq4FseFxuCvK.html