In legal whirpool, Syro Malankara Catholic Church awaits new helmsman

Thomas Devaprasad, Thiruvananthapuram bureau chief for the Malayalam-language daily Deepika, assessed the impact of the death Oct. 10 of Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum on the Syro-Malankara Church, in this commentary that appeared in ASIA FOCUS Oct. 28.

The head fisherman of the Syro-Malankara Church has reached the shores of eternity, but his boat is left tossing among waves of uncertainty and a legal whirlpool.

The death of Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum Oct. 10 created a vacuum in the Syro-Malankara Church, youngest of the 21 Oriental rites in the Catholic Church.

The Vatican may find it difficult to appoint an archbishop to succeed Mar Gregorios, who in 1953 took the mantle of leadership on the death of the Church´s first leader, Archbishop Mar Ivanios.

Formerly belonging to the Syrian Orthodox Oriental Church in Kerala, Mar Ivanios led the Syro-Malankara Church to unite with the Catholic Church in 1930. However, its governing has canonical and traditional complications.

The Syro-Malankara Church — with an archdiocese and two dioceses, 350,000 Catholics, 850 parishes, 780 priests and 1,200 nuns — is a metropolitan “sui juris” (self-ruling) Church, according to the 1991 Code of Oriental Canon Law.

But the code is not fully implemented because Rome has not yet set up its bishops´ synod or appointed a metropolitan as the code requires.

The archbishop of Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram, the Kerala state capital) is by tradition the Syro-Malankara Church leader, but has no canonical authority. Bishop Cyril Mar Baselios of Bathery, senior surviving prelate, said in his book “Syro-Malankara Church” in 1982 that the papal bull that appointed the archbishop said it is only a title.

The archbishop has no power over the Syro-Malankara Church´s other bishops, according to the book, published in English and translated into Malayalam before the author was a bishop.

Oriental Code 173 (I) says that if a metropolitan of a Metropolitan Church dies, the senior bishop by episcopal ordination will be made administrator until the pope appoints a new metropolitan.

If followed, Bishop Baselios would now be archdiocesan administrator and leader of the Church. But the Trivandrum archdiocesan administrative council appointed Auxiliary Bishop Lawrence Mar Ephraem of Trivandrum administrator.

Apostolic Pronuncio to India Archbishop George Zur found that Bishop Ephraem´s appointment was a “canonical error” and asked the council to set it right. So Bishop Ephraem is now acting as delegated by Bishop Baselios.

A metropolitan from among priests is improbable, so speculation centers on Bishops Baselios, Ephraem and Geevarghese Mar Timotheos of Tiruvalla, who is current first vice president of the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India.

A fourth prelate, Bishop Paulos Mar Philoxinos, joined the Syro-Malankara Church rite later and is not considered a candidate for the post.

Bishop Baselios has seniority and is a scholar of Oriental ecclesiology and liturgy, but his chance will lessen if a current demand for a diocesan priest to head the Church gains momentum. Like the late archbishop, he belongs to the Order of the Imitation of Christ, a Syro-Malankara congregation.

Bishop Ephraem, second in seniority, is a former diocesan priest and social worker. But he belongs to the Nadar community, an ethnic minority who are mostly converts to the Church. The majority in the Malankara Church claim to be descendants of converts of Saint Thomas the Apostle.

To transfer Bishop Ephraem to Bathery and Bishop Baselios to Trivandrum is another option, but considered impractical. Catholics in Bathery, in northern Kerala, are migrants from central Kerala.

Other options include keeping Bishop Ephraem as auxiliary to a new metropolitan or erecting a new diocese for him in neighboring Tamil Nadu.

Church observers consider Bishop Timotheos´ chances dim because he has least seniority and also has an important post in the national bishops´ conference.

“Whoever succeeds may find it difficult to acquire the image Mar Gregorios implanted in the hearts of millions. He has acquired a height much beyond that of his Church,” says Father George Pereira, CBCI deputy secretary general.

Source: Asia Focus