A liturgical dispute that has been plaguing India’s Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church could be resolved soon, said officials after Archbishop Cardinal George Alencherry and top officials returned from a visit to the Vatican this week.
Newsroom (11/05/2023 20:05, Gaudium Press) Cardinal Alencherry and four members of the Church’s Permanent Synod held detailed discussions with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the secretary of state and Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches on May 4 to amicably settle the five-decade-long liturgy dispute.
“We presented to them the situation in the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly. They listened to us and made an assessment of the situation. The results of the meeting will come in due course,” Cardinal Alencherry said in a statement issued on May 8.
Father Antony Vadakkekara, the Syro-Malabar Church spokesman called the meeting “very fruitful.”
The top Vatican officials “gave appropriate directions to the Permanent Synod to move towards a lasting solution to the liturgy dispute in Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese during the meeting,” Vadakkekara said on May 8.
“The Synod of Syro-Malabar will implement them at the opportune time,” he said but refused to disclose details of the directions given to the permanent synod. The priest said the directions “will be disclosed to the public after meeting the synod.”
He also said more reconciliatory measures would be adopted to settle the dispute rather than further aggravate or deepen wounds.
The crisis began when the majority of priests and laity in Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, the seat of the Major Archbishop, refused to accept the Order of the Mass, which the Church’s synod wanted all its 35 dioceses to follow.
The synod-approved Mass wants priests to face the altar during Eucharistic prayers, but Ernakulam-Angamaly priests wanted to continue facing the people throughout the Mass.
Alenhcerry cautioned his people against any public comments over the dispute. “I request you also to avoid public comments and speculations which would further disturb the unity of our Church,” his statement said amid speculation about the bifurcation of Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese as a means to a solution.
Critics of Alencherry say the simmering liturgical dispute was revived in 2021 as part of a strategy to divert attention from a land sale controversy, in which Alencherry is entangled.
The majority of some 500 priests and representatives of some 500,000 lay people in the archdiocese accuse Alencherry of being responsible for selling several plots of archdiocesan land at de-valued rates and incurring a loss of some US$10 million. They insist on recovering the losses from Alencherry, who authorized the sales as archbishop.
In June 2021 the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches in an order authorized the Permanent Synod to complete the restitution by selling two plots of the land, which the cardinal reportedly bought while selling other plots.
The archdiocesan canonical bodies appealed against the order of the dicastery to the Apostolic Signatura, the supreme tribunal in the Vatican. However, the Vatican’s top court on Jan. 31 dismissed that appeal.
A section of the media began to publicize the Apostolic Signatura dismissing the appeal of the archdiocesan priests as the Vatican giving a clean chit to Alecncherry, which prompted the priests to seek clarification from the Signatura.
The chancery of the Apostolic Signatura in a rare clarification issued to archdiocesan official Father Varghese Perumayan on April 26 said, it “did not in any way enter into the merits or even examine the legitimacy of the real estate deal made by Cardinal Alencherry …[but] declared an end to the case based purely on procedural technical grounds.”
The chancery also made it clear that it was not the usual practice of the Supreme Tribunal to reply to such an email, but it did so considering it as “an exceptional case owing to its importance.”
The Syro-Malabar Church traces its faith to St. Thomas the Apostle, who according to a tradition evangelized the western Indian coast. With some 5.5 million Catholics, it is the second largest Eastern rite Church in the world after the Ukrainian Church.
Besides Alencherry, other members of the Permanent Synod that visited the Vatican include Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, Archbishop Mathew Moolakkatt, Archbishop Joseph Pamplany and Archbishop Joseph Perumthottam.
Raju Hasmukh with files from UCAN
