Indian Orthodox object to installation of rival church’s Catholicos

The Malankara Church opposed the installation of the Jacobite Church’s Catholicos, calling on state and federal authorities in India not to send a delegation to Lebanon for the ceremony.

Joseph Mar Gregorios was consecrated Catholicos of the Jacobite Syrian Church on 25 March despite opposition from the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church, a rival faction within Indian Orthodoxy.

The Patriarch of Antioch Ignatius Aphrem II, the head of the Syriac Orthodox Church, led the consecration ceremony at St Mary’s Syrian Orthodox Cathedral in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

President Joseph Khalil Aoun of Lebanon, ambassadors of different countries, the heads of several churches including the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Syrian Catholic Church, besides officials from the Indian federal and state governments were to attend the occasion, according to a Church statement.  

Joseph Gregorious succeeded the late Baselious Thomas I who died on 31 October 2024.

The Catholicos-elect, who was selected while his predecessor was still alive, becomes the eighty-first Catholicos, after the Patriarch the second highest authority in the Church, also known as the Maphrian.

Following the consecration, the enthronement ceremony will take place on 30 March at St Athanasius Cathedral in Puthencruz in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

However, the Malankara Church opposed his installation, calling on state and federal authorities in India not to send a delegation to Lebanon for the ceremony because it would be “legally inappropriate”.

Its Catholicos Baselios Marthoma Mathews III wrote to the state and federal governments asking them to boycott the ceremony, warning it was tantamount to “subverting the law and destabilising the Malankara Church”. He accused the Patriarch of Antioch of attempting to “undermine India’s legal framework” from abroad.

When these petitions did not receive a response, the Malankara Church asked the Kerala High Court to stop the official delegations from attending the ceremony. But the court, which is already hearing a dispute between the two churches, refused to intervene.

However, it asked the state authorities to ensure there is no law and order situation created in this regard as feared by the petitioner.

Metropolitan Kuriakose Theophilus of the Jacobite Church said that according to a 1995 court verdict, it is under the Patriarch of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church who is therefore entitled to consecrate its new Catholicos.

The Jacobite and Malankara Churches – formed by a schism in 1909-12 within the unified Malankara Church – have disputed issues of ecclesiastical authority and church governance for decades in a plethora of court cases.    

On 20 March, the managing committee of the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church adopted a resolution condemning what they called the “attempts by the Patriarch of Antioch to sow discord in India by appointing a rival Catholicos”. It also condemned the government and political leaders supporting the actions of the Patriarch.

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