By Matters India Reporter

Kochi, March 15, 2023: The Kerala High Court has turned down the Kottayam archbishop’s plea seeking a stay of a lower court order that ended the centuries-old practice of endogamy in his Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church.

The Kottayam archdiocese based in the southern Indian state of Kerala prohibits marriage of its members from outside the community.

Those violating the practice are denied membership in the Church to maintain the purity of blood theory.

The Kottayam district court on April 30, 2021, declared the practice as against India’s laws and directed the diocesan authorities not to discriminate its members who have married outside the community.

The lower court, in its order, ordered the archdiocese to ensure that the Knanaya Catholics marrying from other diocese do not lose their diocesan membership.

It further restrained the archdiocese from terminating the membership of such people.

The court made it mandatory for the archdiocese to “provide equal rights and facilities through parish priests for the sacrament of marriage to those members of the Archeparchy of Kottayam who wish to marry Catholics from any other diocese.”

Archbishop Mathew Moolakkatt of Kottayam, however, challenged the order in the Kerala High Court and sought direction to quash it. He also wanted an interim stay over the implementation of the lower court order.

A single bench of Justice M R Anitha on March 10 declined to stay the lower court order but agreed to hear the Kottayam archbishop’s concerns.

The archbishop in his application cited 54 substantial questions of law to get the lower court order dismissed.

He said the lower court order would overturn the practice and custom his Knanaya community has followed for more than 17 centuries.

“The decision, if enforced, will destroy the ethnic identity of the community and all those who were permitted on their application to join the parishes of their spouses would have to be taken back by causing great discontentment in the community and if the decree were to be enforced pending this appeal, it will lead to irreparable injuries,” the archbishop argued.

The respondents, however, opposed the archbishop’s claims and urged the court to dismiss his appeal as it had nothing new to offer other than repeating what had been said during the trial. The 45 respondents are banded under the banner of Knanaya Catholic Reforms Committee.

They said “the cruel” practice of endogamy has led to dismissal of thousands of community members from the archdiocese and denied them sacraments.

“Thousands of women and children are the victims of it (endogamy) and live like second class citizens without dignity and liberty as guaranteed in the Indian Constitution.”

The priests in the archdiocese, according to them, did not permit them to participate in prayer meetings or have prayer services in their homes.

The respondents also pointed out that many middle aged people have remained unmarried in the community because of lack of brides and the fear of expulsion from the Church if they married from outside the archdiocese that has jurisdiction across the world.

The respondents also submitted that the lower court order had given hope to the dismissed senior members of the community to get their bodies buried in the family cemetery where their ancestors rest.

They also urged the court to dismiss the appeal. The court, however, agreed to hear the concerns of the archbishop and but refused to stay the lower court order.

The archdiocese of Kottayam, a diocese until 2005, was established in 1911 for an endogamous Catholic community mostly based in Kerala state.

The Knanaya community would not accept those marrying from other Catholic dioceses, who it considers have impure blood.

The community claims to have their origin from a group of Jewish-Christian emigrants from Cana in Southern Mesopotamia, who landed on the Kerala coast in AD 345.

They claim to have maintained the purity of lineage by not accepting those marrying outside their community.

The Knanaya Reform Committee, however, disagrees with the contentions of the diocesan authorities terming the practice as “devilish” and wants to end it.

When the diocesan authorities refused to concede to their demand they adopted legal remedy.

The reform committee members have expressed the hope that the high court will uphold the lower court order and end discrimination among the community members.