An 82-year-old priest was pushed off the altar amid a clash during Sunday Mass inside a church in southern Kerala, in a fresh episode of Syro-Malabar Liturgical violence.
Newsdesk (03/02/2025 20:30, Gaudium Press) The decades-old liturgy dispute over rubrics of Mass in the India-based Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church turned violent. In a church, parishioners pushed a priest off the altar amid clashes, as Syro-Malabar Liturgical Violence seems to increase.
Father John Thottuppuram, an 82-year-old priest, faced the ire of the laity on Feb. 1 when he tried to offer the official Mass approved by the Church’s Synod at St Sebastian Church, Prasadagiri in southern Kerala state.
A video of the incident circulating on social media showed a group of laity heckling and pushing the priest off the altar while he was saying the official mass, in which priests face the altar.
Liturgical Violence
The rival groups within the parish – those who support and oppose the official mass – filed separate complaints with the local police, blaming each other for the incident.
Father Antony Vadakkekara, the spokesperson of the Syro-Malabar Church, condemned the violence inside the church.
“The elderly priest, being the administrator, went to the church as part of his pastoral ministry to offer Mass as a special case,” he claimed.
“Whoever was behind it [the incident] should be punished for their criminal act as per the civil law. They will also face action as per the Church laws,” Vadakkekara said on Feb. 3.
The Vincentian priest urged local Catholics to pray to God for mercy and as a penance for “this sacrilegious act committed on the altar, the most sacred place, during holy Mass.”
The parish belongs to the archdiocese of Ernakulam and Angamaly, where most priests and laity have rejected the official rubrics and to continue their traditional mass in which priests face the congregation.
The Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency (AMT) said the elderly priest was prevented from offering Mass because he had violated a court order restraining him from doing so.
The AMT, a body of priests, religious, and laity, spearheads the protests against the synod-appointed administrator and his curia that works to implement the official liturgy in the archdiocese.
The AMT reported that the parishioners had prevented the elderly priest from entering their parish two months back.
Two months ago, the parishioners also approached a local court, which issued a restraining order preventing the priest from taking over as parish administrator.
AMT spokesperson Riju Kanjookaran said the priest returned last Sunday with a mob of people from outside the parish and forcefully entered its premises.
“They physically assaulted and locked up the parish priest, Father Jerin Palathingal, inside his room. The attackers even used pepper spray,” Kanjookaran said.
The lay spokesperson alleged that the actions of Thottuppuram and the mob violated the Jan. 24 court order.
“But we stand united and will not make any compromise on our traditional Mass,” Kanjookaran said.
Kanjookaran said that 164 of the 176 families in the parish had informed the archdiocesan authorities in writing that Thottuppuram “will not be accepted in their parish as administrator.”
The crisis-ridden archdiocese is the seat of the Church head, Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil.
It has been in turmoil since August 2021, when the Synod ordered all 35 dioceses to follow a uniform mode of Mass for greater unity. Except for the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, all others complied with the Synod order in November 2021.
The archdiocese is home to nearly 10 percent of Syro-Malabar Catholic Church’s estimated five million members in India and abroad.
Raju Hasmukh with files from UCAN News
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