Syro-Malabar leader insists on liturgical unity goal

Weeks after the resolution of a long-running liturgical dispute, the synod of Syro-Malabar bishops insisted that all parishes adopt its mandated “uniform mode” of the liturgy.

In a letter issued shortly after the conclusion of the Syro-Malabar Church’s thirty-second synod on 19-31 August, its leader Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil said it was “sad that the uniform mode of the liturgy in all the parishes could not be enforced”.

Under the uniform mode of the Holy Qurbana – the Syro-Malabar Mass – the priest faces ad orientem for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, a requirement which provoked protests in the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly, Church’s primatial diocese where many parishes favoured the versus populum liturgy.

Thattil confirmed that parishes in the archeparchy would be permitted to maintain the versus populum liturgy on the condition that they celebrated one Mass in the uniform mode on Sundays and Holy days of obligation. However, he added that “this is just to help them get used to the uniform mode”.  

An advisory episcopal assembly – including priests and laypeople – also met in the course of the synod, and circulated a document that said advocating for ecclesiastical and community rights should not be misconstrued as religious fundamentalism or extremism.

Some reports from the synod claimed that supporters of the archeparchy had caused tensions during the meeting, but Church officials denied this was the case.

A spokesman, Fr Anthony Vadakkekra, said members from the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly had given a letter to Archbishop Thattil asking him not to praise his predecessor Cardinal George Alencherry, but caused no further disruption.

“The reports appearing in social media that leaflets demanding removal of [the archeparchy’s former apostolic administrator] Archbishop Andrews Thazhath were distributed by the rebel faction have been fabricated. There is no truth in them,” he said.

The archeparchy, in Kerala, is the largest of the 35 Syro-Malabar dioceses in India and around the world, with 500,000 laity and 450 priests in its 328 parishes, chapels and Mass centres.

The synod elected the new mebers of the Church’s permanent synod to advise Archbishop Thattil: Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt of Pala, Archbishop Andrews Thazhath of Thrissur, Archbishop Joseph Pamplany of Thalassery and Archbishop Mathew Moolakkatt of Kottayam.

Synod members also discussed conditions in Kerala following massive landslides in Wayanad district on 30 July that killed hundreds of people and left thousands homeless. The Church pledged to fund the construction of new houses.

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