Malankara Orthodox Church responds to Patriarch of Antioch’s call for peace, stresses respect for court verdicts

KOTTAYAM Welcoming Patriarch of Antioch Ignatius Aphrem II’s call for lasting peace in the Malankara Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church on Wednesday said reconciliation could be achieved immediately if the laws of the country and the Church were respected. In a statement, Yuhanon Mar Diascoros Metropolitan, president of the Church’s media wing, cautioned that a call for peace would ring hollow if accompanied by attempts to defy court verdicts. “While calling for peace on the one hand, it is not right to make preparations to violate court verdicts on the other,” he said.

Court verdicts He pointed out that the Patriarch required the permission of the Catholicos and Malankara Metropolitan to enter churches belonging to the Malankara Church, as made clear in the 1995 court verdict. The 2017 Supreme Court verdict had also categorically ruled out parallel administration in the Church, he said. “The path to peace cannot be paved by challenging the judiciary.

Unfortunately, we are witnessing administrative machinery extending protection to violations of the law.