Hundreds attend Orthodox Church leader’s funeral

By Matters India Reporter

Kottayam: Hundreds of people from various social strata on July 13 attended the funeral of the supreme head of the Malankara Orthodox Church.

Catholicos of the East, Baselios Marthoma Paulose II, died July 12 at Parumala St. Gregorios Hospital. He was on treatment for cancer for one and half years and was on ventilator support for the last few days.

The mortal remains were laid to rest with state honors in a specially-made crypt beside the Catholicate palace chapel at the Church headquarters at Devalokam near Kottayam.

The proceedings during the day began with a prayer in the morning. Kuriakose Mar Cleemis Metropolitan, who is in-charge of Malankara Association, led the funeral service, which began at 2 pm. All the bishops of the Orthodox Church were co-celebrants.

Heads of other Christian denominations such as Cardinal George Alencherry, major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and his Syro-Malankara counterpart Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, Bishop Sabu K Cherian of Church of South India’s Madhya Kerala diocese, and Catholic Archbishop Joseph Perumthottam of Changanacherry.

US president Joe Biden and Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of Antioch, offered condolences.

Church sources said a five-member Episcopal council led by senior metropolitan Kuriakose Mar Cleemis would manage administration of the Church until October 14 when the Malankara Association – an apex body comprising priests and laity representatives from all parishes under the Church — is slated to convene at Parumala and ratify the nomination of the next head of the church.

Born on August 30, 1946, in Mangad village at Kunnamkulam in Thrissur district, his parents, father K A Iype and mother Kunjeetty sent him to a local school.

After graduating from St Thomas College, Thrissur, he joined the Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kottayam and obtained a degree from Serampore University as well. He had also obtained an MA in Sociology from CMS College, Kottayam.

Being the supreme head of Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of India, he was the 91st Catholicos of the East and the 21st Metropolitan of Malankara Orthodox diocese. He was elected as the Catholica Bava after Baselios Marthoma Didymus I on November 1, 2010, at a function in Parumala Seminary.

He was the youngest Catholica Bava, after Parumala Metropolitan, in the history of Malankara Orthodox churches. It was during his time, the apex court delivered the order on July 3, 2017, clearing the long-standing dispute between two factions of India’s Orthodox Church.

Even while the Orthodox-Jacobite conflicts shook the foundation of peace within the Malankara Church, the Catholicos continued to speak for a possible reconciliation, Church observers recall.

“We have a dream. We are one. We have the same faith and follow the same worship protocol. We want peace. We must live under the same roof. We must worship God as one body,” he told the Catholicate Centennial Conference on November 25, 2012, in Kochi.

The dispute between the two factions was at its peak when he was enthroned as the Catholicos of the East in 2010. Even while the conflicts shook the foundation the Malankara Church, he stood unfazed and continued to speak for a possible reconciliation.

Under him, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church won a long drawn legal battle with the Jacobite faction, which drew to a close with the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in July 2017. He took the judgment as yet another occasion to strive for the reunion of the Orthodox-Jacobite factions.

Working towards the aim of making the Malankara Church free of litigation, the Catholicos also had to face a barrage of criticism and went through several difficult patches. The firmness in his stance was amply evident when the Catholicos decided against pushing for a legal battle despite being detained by the rival factions for about eight hours while attending a service at the disputed Varikoli church.

A votary of effective and meaningful inter-church relations, the Catholicos had also travelled to all the Oriental Orthodox Churches and had meetings with all their heads. His meeting with the present Pope of the Catholic Church also enhanced the bilateral relations between the two churches.