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Kerala High Court Rules on Pentecost Assembly Churches Dispute
The High Court of Kerala has recently ordered the District Collectors of Ernakulam and Palakkad to take over the administrative control of six churches which remained a bone of contention between the Jacobite and Orthodox factions of Malankara Christians [St Thomas Orthodox Syrian Church & anr v Dr Venu V IAS & ors and connected cases].
The situation detailed above occurred after the Court passed an order in a contempt proceedings filed by two vicars (the petitioners) who are the members of the Orthodox faction.
Justice VG Arun expressed his displeasure at the entire non compliance of court directions passed in 2022 to permit members of the Malankara Orthodox Church (Orthodox faction) to offer prayers in the said churches which were being prevented by Jacobite worshippers.
He stated thus: there is no other way I can go other than ordering the District Collectors to proceed as per the provisions of law to take possession of these churches.
”The dysphoric or recalcitrant attitude of the official respondents /government and disregard of the directions by the party respondents (Jacobite faction members) compel this Court to give out preventive directions against the contemptuous acts ,” said the Court.
Justice VG Arun, the Kerala High court.
Justice VG Arun who serves for the Kerala High court
The State authorities had told the Court that a number of persons belonging to Jacobite Church including men, women and children were preventing anyone from entering the Church.
The State said that it had done its level best to execute the Court’s orders but it had no other option than to deputed following massive protest by Jacobites. That, the Court was told could lead to a loss of lives does further State intervention is made.
The Jacobite faction before the Court argued that the church cannot be turned over to the Orthodox faction and they further said the earlier order was made based on the wrongful premise in 2022.
The Court dismissed their arguments and directed that three more churches, namely, St. Mary’s Orthodox Church at Odakkali, St. John’s Besphage Orthadox Syrian Church at Pulinthanam and St. Thomas Orthadox Syrian Church at Mazhuvannoor be handed over to the District Collector of Ernakulam.
The District Collector of Palakkad was directed to take over possession of three other churches namely St. Mary’s Orthodox Church Mangalam Dam, St. Mary’s Orthodox SyrianChurch Erickinchira and St. Thomas Orthodox Syrian Church Cherukunnam.
Both Collectors were directed to file compliance reports by September 30 when the case will be taken for hearing.
Furthermore, the District Police Chiefs were also ordered to provide adequate manpower for the purpose of actively participating in the take over in order to make sure that the Court’s orders are executed without any delay.
By way of background, the Orthodox and Jacobite fractions for some time formed one church but later fell out on a contentious issue of whom the church should recognize as its superior.
While the Orthodox faction, swore to recognize and obey a Bishop in Kerala known as Malankara Metropolitan, the Jacobite faction considers the Patriarch of Antioch as its head.
Internal squabbles then started with the factions involved fighting over who has the right to manage this or that church in Kerala. This disagreement could however be taken to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court of India in the KS Varghese v. St. Peter’s and Paul’s Syrian Orthodox Church and others decided in favour of Orthodox church in a number of contentious issues based on an agreement inked in 1934-now known as the 1934 Constitution.
The executive also expressed that the top court also said that another parallel system of running the churches could not have been established setting up of the document in 2002 by the Jacobite faction .
But the Orthodox faction has since time to time continued to lamp on about non-implementation of the supreme court ruling of 2017.
In one such prayer, a prayer, a single bench of the High Court in 2022 ordered the police to extend necessary support to the petitioners (Orthodox faction) to exercise their religious rights to manage prayers in some of the churches under contestation in a peaceful manner.
In view of the fact that their access to the churches remained blocked by the rival Jacobite parishioners the Orthodox petitioners for the third time had to approach the High Court seeking redress by filing the present contempt petition.
It is noteworthy that on August 30 the Jacobite respondents sought to persuade Justice Arun not to interfere in the matter anymore, but the latter in response asked if it should remain indifferent to the situation when its orders were not obeyed. He said that such contemptuous acts would damage the image of the entire judicial system of the country.
Disregard of the orders of the court goes to the heart of the rule of law on which judicious system is based Any conduct which undermines the authority of the court and the administration of justice is liable to be maligned if it is allowed to continue The role of any court is to uphold the dignity of the law and preserve the integrity of the system The law is the same for big and small, the strong and the weak it must be equally
