Malankara Catholic Church gets new leader after year long wait

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Malankara Catholic Church gets new leader after year long wait

Bishop Cyril Mar Baselios of Bathery was appointed archbishop of Trivandrum and head of the Syro-Malankara Church Nov. 29, ending the Oriental-rite Catholic Church´s year-long wait.

“The universal Church is happy that Malankara Catholics have got a new leader,” said Archbishop Joseph Powathil of Changanacherry, president of the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India (CBCI).

Archbishop Mar Baselios, 60, will be the third prelate to head the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, which joined the Catholic fold from the Jacobite Church in 1930 under the leadership of the late Archbishop Mar Ivanios.

Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios, who succeeded the late Archbishop Ivanios in 1955, led the Church for nearly 40 years before his death in October 1994.

The new appointment “filled the void caused by the death of Archbishop Gregorios,” Archbishop Powathil said while congratulating the new archbishop in Thiruvananthapurum, capital of Kerala state, southern India.

The new archbishop is a member of his Church´s only religious congregation, the Order of the Imitation of Christ (OIC), and was once its superior. Archbishop Gregorios was a member of OIC, which Mar Ivanios founded in 1919.

The installation of the new archbishop, who has a doctorate in canon law and taught theology will be Dec. 14 in Thiruvananthapuram, Church sources said.

Archbishop Baselios, the fifth of 10 children of a peasant family in central Kerala, was ordained a priest in 1960 and sent to Rome for higher studies.

The new Malankara leader, whose four sisters became nuns and three of his brothers priests, became the first bishop of Bathery diocese, erected in 1978 as the third Malankara diocese.

When Pope Pius XI constituted the Malankara Catholic hierarchy in 1932, it comprised only Trivandrum archdiocese and Tiruvalla diocese.

The Malankara Church, youngest of the 21 Oriental Catholic Churches, has 350,000 members, mostly in Kerala.

Leaders of the Latin and Syro-Malabar rites congratulated the new Archbishop in Thiruvananthapuram and joined laypeople to accept his blessing in St. Mary´s Cathedral, where the announcement was made.

Auxiliary Bishop Lawrence Mar Ephraem of Trivandrum announced the appointment and bishops and priests of other rites and denominations pledged to cooperate with the new Malankara-Church head.

75 Year Old Order of the Imitation of Christ (OIC) calls for Unity

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75 Year Old Order of the Imitation of Christ (OIC) calls for Unity

The Order of the Imitation of Christ (OIC), has observed its 75th anniversary with a renewed call for their Churches´ unity.

Bishops of India´s three Catholic rites, the Orthodox Church and Protestant Church of South India joined in the jubilee celebrations of the Syro-Malankara Church´s only religious congregation.

Known also as Bethany Ashram, the OIC ended its jubilee celebrations Nov. 25 in Thiruvananthapuram, southern India.

The Syro-Malankara Church´s new administrator, Bishop Cyril Mar Baselios of Bathery, stressed Church unity to make Christ´s message meaningful in India.

OIC superior general Father Jerome Peedikaparampil told they had invited bishops of all Churches to final celebrations focused on ecumenism.

“All turned up except for our counterparts in the Orthodox Church. We pray and rededicate ourselves for the unity of the Churches,” he added.

The OIC was founded by Mar Ivanios, an Orthodox Christian, in 1919. When he joined the Catholic Church in 1930 to form the Syro-Malankara Church, a few Bethany members remained Orthodox.

The order´s Orthodox wing has 12 priests at their motherhouse at Perinad in Kerala´s Pathanamthitta district. The Catholic faction has 102 priests, 80 seminarians, 31 parishes and 32 institutions, Father Peedikaparampil said.

The two factions respect Mar Ivanios as their founder, who wanted the congregation to be Indian in all aspects, including dress.

Father Peedikaparampil said Archbishop Mar Ivanios made many sacrifices for Christian unity and asserted that the Syro-Malankara Church is “a living testimony of his charisma.”

The OIC superior general said their order was founded to work for the poor and live like Hindu “sanyasees” (ascetics). Bethany priests became the first Christian order in India to wear saffron clothes like Hindu hermits.

Among those who accepted Father Peedikaparampil´s invitation to attend the concluding function were Jacobite Bishop Abraham Mar Clemus of Chinjavanam and Church of South India Bishop Sam Mathew of Central Kerala.

An emotional Bishop Clemus predicted “Churches of Christ will one day become one,” urging participants to pray and work “that this may happen in our time.”

Bishop Peter Thuruthikonam of Vijayapuram Latin-rite diocese opened the year long celebrations in August 1993. The concluding function was opened by Cardinal Antony Padiyara, Syro-Malabar major archbishop of Ernakulam.

Father Peedikaparampil said the OIC built 78 houses for the poor in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu states in southern India, as part of the jubilee celebrations.

They also adopted 75 children to attend high school, and opened an orphanage for 30 children and a home for the aged in Kerala, during the jubilee year.

In legal whirpool, Syro Malankara Catholic Church awaits new helmsman

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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

A final tribute to Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios

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A final tribute to Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios

On a Sunday morning in May 1932, Kunjukutty Thangalathil, 16, ran away from home to join the Catholic Church. He joined the Syro-Malankara Church, the rite he would head for four decades as Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios until he died Oct. 10.

In 1932, Kunjukutty´s parents — Idiculla and Annamma — were furious. They thought the teenager´s actions insulted the family. Thangalathils were well known and took special pride in being Jacobites, an Orthodox sect in Kerala state, southern India, that traces its origins to Saint Thomas the Apostle.

Later as a bishop in the Syro-Malankara Church, Kunjukutty said his decision to leave his parents was painful, but he felt compelled to join Archbishop Mar Ivanios and other Orthodox Christians who had reunited with Rome in 1930.

The Thangalathils would join him one by one. Idiculla first, then his brothers, one becoming a priest. His mother, the last to join, took 17 years.

Kunjukutty joined the Bethany Ashram of the Order of the Imitation of Christ, the Syro-Malankara Church´s only religious congregation. He became Benedict and took monastic vows in 1935. Though from an aristocratic family, he practiced severe poverty and sought detachment.

When he became bishop in 1953, he wore saffron, the color of Bethany priests. Since saffron is the color of Hindu hermits, in those pre-Second Vatican Council days, his choice raised many eyebrows among Catholics.

Forty years later, the Church is all for being Indian in dress and customs. Archbishop Gregorios was among the first bishops to recommend an Indian Catholic rite which would embrace the Latin, Malabar and Malankara rites.

Archbishop Gregorios was the first Syrian president of the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India (1989-91), and he chaired several of its commissions.

He was busy with more than strictly Church work. For poverty alleviation in villages, the archbishop recommended scientific and systematic farming of fish, poultry and vegetables. He used his Church land for model farming.

He was vice president of the Association for Social Health in India and chairman of Kerala Agri-horticultural Society and Friends of the Trees.

He started a low cost housing project for the poor, built 5,000 houses and launched the Health for One Million program, primarily for neglected women. Half the program´s 1,057 trained volunteers are non-Christians.

The archbishop built a garment center that now provides jobs for 200 women.

Federal and state officials and non-governmental agencies recognized Archbishop Gregorios as a spokesperson of Christians in southern India and revered his opinions. He advised the Kerala state board of education for 12 years and sat on the governing council of Kerala Agricultural University.

Archbishop Gregorios also cultivated good relations with top political leaders such as former prime ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Vishwanatha Pratap Singh. A frequent visitor to his place was E.K. Nayanar, a communist leader and former chief minister of Kerala.

A symbol of harmony and unity, he never feared to defend his beliefs.

In 1957, Kerala´s communist government tried to nationalize Christian schools. Archbishop Gregorios fought the move leading other Christian leaders. Similarly in 1972, he protested state take over of Christian colleges.

In 1986, he helped avert a Hindu-Christian riot after some Christians unearthed a cross near a famous Hindu temple in Kerala. Christians claimed the cross belonged to Saint Thomas and wanted to build a church at the site.

Hindus objected saying the place came under the pleasure garden of their deity. Archbishop Gregorios pacified the Hindus and helped build an ecumenical church outside the temple precincts, the only church owned jointly by all Christian denominations in Kerala.

– UCA News

Eastern tradition marks Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios’ Funeral

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Eastern tradition marks Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios’ Funeral

Eastern tradition marked the funeral of Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum, who led the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church for 40 years before his death here Oct. 10.

Some 20,000 people, including Church and political leaders, attended the funeral Oct. 12 in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala state, southern India. The archbishop died at 78 due to complications of bone cancer.

At his funeral, Archbishop Gregorios´ body was seated on a throne and entombed in a crypt inside St. Mary´s Cathedral. His body, wrapped in perfumed linen, sat on a throne facing east, according to Eastern tradition.

The service started at 10 a.m. with a “nagari kanikal” (showing the town) procession through Thiruvananthapuram.

As the body was moved to a flower-bedded chariot for the 1.5 kilometer procession, Syro-Malankara priests prayed together, “Go in peace, loving father, our spiritual inspiration. Go to the land of no worries and wails.”

A police jeep led the procession, followed by the faithful carrying lighted candles in four lines. Behind them a police band played funeral tunes.

Priests and nuns walked behind the band reciting prayers, then girls in a black-covered vehicle threw petals at the chariot carrying his body.

Several bishops, including Archbishop George Zur, apostolic pronuncio to India, sat in the chariot as thousands lined the route to pay their respects.

The two-and-a-half hour procession ended at the cathedral, where some 20 bishops, including three Syro-Malankara prelates, joined the three-hour funeral service.

Before burial, the golden pectoral cross, chain, ring and scepter were replaced with wooden replicas.

Only bishops, priests, nuns and lay representatives were allowed inside the cathedral while others watched outside on closed-circuit television sets.

The pronuncio read a message from Pope John Paul II which said, “the death of the archbishop is a great loss to the Indian Church in general and the Malankara Church in particular.”

The service ended with an archdiocesan priest saying farewell on behalf of the late archbishop, according to Eastern tradition. He said good-bye to the cathedral, priests, city and people three times, turning to the four directions.

Then seven priests lifted the body with the chair and the people responded: “Go in peace, you, the heir of paradise.”

The body was brought near the crypt, where the main celebrant, Bishop Cyril Mar Baselios of Bathery, made the sign of the cross with holy oil on the face, chest and knees, then made a sign of the cross with mud on the chest.

“You are dust and will return to dust but will be renewed,” Bishop Cyril said. The face was covered with a cloth before placing the body in the crypt, which was later filled with 300 kilograms of incense.

Father Thomas Kumbukattu, Trivandrum vicar general, told UCA News they bury bishops in a sitting position for two reasons.

Bishops are successors of the Apostles, who Jesus promised will sit on the throne to judge the 12 tribes of Israel at the last judgment. Father Kumbukattu said Oriental bishops are buried sitting to symbolize this promise.

Also, great Indian spiritual leaders such as Shankaracharyas, successors of 8th-century Hindu philosopher-reformer Adi Shankara, are also buried sitting.

Filling the crypt with incense is a biblical adaptation by Eastern Churches. Saint John´s Gospel says Jesus was buried wrapped in perfumed linen clothes with spices. Tombs of revered Indians are also filled with spices.

The body, according to Eastern custom, faces east, anticipating Christ´s second coming. Bishops of Orthodox Oriental Churches are also buried this way. Special evening and morning prayers are said at the tomb for three days.

The Kerala state government declared a holiday in Thiruvananthapuram Oct. 12 out of respect for the late archbishop. On the funeral day, Church schools, including Orthodox and Church of South India schools, closed in respect.

City shops were closed and streets were covered with black flags.

Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios, called to eternal rest

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Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios, called to eternal rest

Order of the Imitation of Christ Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum, 78, who led the 350,000-member Syro-Malankara Church for four decades, died of cancer here Oct. 10.

Archbishop Gregorios, 78, died of bone cancer in Medical College Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala state, southern India. He had undergone surgery Sept. 26 to remove a blockage in his large intestine.

“India lost a great humanist, who loved and served people beyond the narrow limitations of caste and creed,” Indian Vice President K.R. Narayanan said in a condolence message.

Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India (CBCI) president Archbishop Joseph Powathil of Changanacherry said the Indian Church lost a great leader. Archbishop Gregorios had served as CBCI president in 1989-91.

In a message from Rome, where he is attending the Synod of Bishops, Archbishop Powathil recalled that the late archbishop gave a Christian meaning to the country´s socio-economic life.

In 1952, Archbishop Gregorios became auxiliary to Archbishop Mar Ivanios, who in 1930 led a group of Orthodox Christians to join the Catholic Church.

The reunited group became known as the Syro-Malankara Church, the youngest of 21 Oriental Churches.

Born Feb. 1, 1916, to an Orthodox Christian family in Kallooppara, central Kerala, Varghese Thangalathil (his baptismal name) entered the Order of the Imitation of Christ in 1935.

Ordained a priest in 1944 at Kandy Papal Seminary in Sri Lanka, he observed the golden jubilee of his ordination Aug. 24 in his sick bed.

Archbishop Gregorios, who succeeded Archbishop Ivanios as the Church´s head in 1955, is credited with attending all sessions of the Second Vatican Council and later synods. His illness prevented him from attending the current synod.

Several political leaders, including Kerala State Chief Minister K. Karunakaran and Federal Minister A.K. Antony, sent messages to the archbishop´s house in Thiruvananthapuram on hearing of his death.

Karunakaran said the prelate´s death is a “great loss to the state of Kerala” and Antony described him as an “ideal of India´s communal amity.”

Cardinal Antony Padiyara of Ernakulam, major archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church, another of India´s three rites (Latin, Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara), said “the Church has lost a leader of the bishops and bishop of the leaders.”

Archbishop Cornelius Elanjikkal of Verapoly, leader of the Latin bishops in Kerala, said he had “a great heart that recognized and respected all.”

Christian institutions in Thiruvananthapuram and those managed by the Syro- Malankara Church in Kerala state observed Oct. 11 as a holiday to mourn Archbishop Gregorios´ death.

Several Hindu and Muslim leaders, paying homage to the late Syro-Malankara head, described him as a “giant who left an indelible mark on the nation´s socio, economic, cultural and political fields.”

 

Source: UCA News

Malankara Archdiocese health plan helps poor in Kerala

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Malankara Archdiocese health plan helps poor in Kerala

Sinimol, who is blind, is happy that she is no longer a burden to her family. In fact, the 20-year-old woman supports them with earnings from her “petty shop” in Kerala state, southern India.

She set up her business through Trivandrum archdiocese´s Health for One Million (HOM) project. The brainchild of Auxiliary Bishop Lawrence Mar Ephraem of Trivandrum, it helps poor families in Kerala.

Implemented under the Malankara-rite archdiocese´s Jana Kshema Sangam (JKS, people´s welfare society), HOM assists area health care and development.

Bishop Ephraem, who chairs JKS, says “micro-level” health-based community development has become an agent of change for poor families. Incorporating recent health-care thinking, HOM mostly helps poor married women.

“We do not seek solutions to all their problems, but try to create a system that awakens them to the problems and educates them to solve them,” he said.

“HOM makes beneficiaries agents of their own health and development,” says the former secretary general of the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India.

HOM coordinator Sister Eymrad says the project helps hundreds of mothers and families. It has helped save children from malnutrition, rehabilitated the disabled, assisted elderly to get pensions and taken the sick to hospitals.

She said women are targeted because “only she can change the family.”

Bishop Ephraem said he launched HOM in 1975, inspired by the Catholic Hospitals Association of India “Health for One Million” convention theme in 1973, when he was in charge of an archdiocesan leprosy hospital.

In its first phase, 1976-1980, some 1,000 village workers were trained.

In 1980, 1,057 volunteers attended a convention in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala´s state capital, 2,780 kilometers south of New Delhi.

Of the volunteers, 756 were married and 301 unmarried; 569 were Christians, 419 Hindus and 69 Muslims; 387 had attended primary school, 357 middle school, and 263 high school, and 50 were illiterate.

In its second phase, 1981-2000, HOM focuses on growth monitoring, oral rehydration therapy, breastfeeding, immunization, women´s education, food supplements and family planning.

The project aims at rehabilitation, community-based ecology and development, by increasing the body weight of malnourished children and also improving the nutrition of pregnant or lactating women.

It monitors growth of children under 5, encourages breastfeeding, and promotes oral rehydration, immunization and kitchen gardens.

Since 1981, the year of the disabled, HOM regularly surveys the handicapped and updates its data. Workers are trained to detect early signs of disability.

The scheme depends on local resources mobilized by workers for its funding. Each member contributes to its revolving fund annually. They also deposit earnings with HOM, which gives them interest.

This money is used for income-generating schemes such as Sinimol´s petty shop. The archdiocese´s village credit unions provide banking.

The HOM general survey includes families´ income levels, helping low-income families to use government and voluntary facilities to improve their economy.

It promotes cultivation of herbs and local medicines, and its volunteers help in reforestation and vegetable cultivation.

Sister Eymrad said loan repayment is “almost total among beneficiaries,” attributing HOM´s success to its structure, its main strength being units of people “awakened to local problems and aware of resources” in each village.

The governing board meets monthly at the archbishop´s house in Thiruvananthapuram. “It is doing a wonderful job,” says Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios of Trivandrum.

Alok Mukhopadhyaya, who studied the project with the help of the Ford foundation, also gave it a positive evaluation.

“HOM is an outstanding example of how a Church can use local resources, community organizations, development principles and governmental and financial institutions to empower the community,” Mukhopadhyaya says.

Syro Malankara Catholic Church trains entrepreneurs as part of people upliftment program

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Syro Malankara Catholic Church trains entrepreneurs as part of people upliftment program

Trivandrum archdiocese of the indigenous Syro-Malankara Church is offering professional training to poor entrepreneurs from villages in this southern Indian district.

The trainees are taught fundamentals of management, budgeting, marketing and resource mobilization, which will help them open new industries and find self-employment, said archdiocesan social work director Father Thomas Varghese Vattaparambil.

The training will qualify entrepreneurs to receive help from Church-backed credit unions here. The archdiocese has 105 credit unions formed by villagers and 35 credit unions are involved in the training program.

Each of the 35 unions will send 10 participants for the program conducted by a professional training agency, Father Vattaparambil told UCA News.

Challa Muthu, a trainee, said the program has “showed us professional ways of accounting. We had never heard of budget for a small business.”

Father Vattaparambil said the entrepreneurship development program is among several schemes the archdiocese has launched for village development.

The agro-industrial archdiocese headed by Archbishop Benedict Mar Gregorios, an award-winning economics scholar of Kerala University, offers a self-employment program to help some 700 rural people with loans up to 12,000 rupees (US$387), including 40 percent subsidy.

Another project, Janasoubhagya (people´s welfare) imparts legal education to activists, organizes ecological and environmental programs for the poor and promotes rural health, Father Vattaparambil said.

The archdiocese´s six Jeevavardhini (life enhancement) centers promote education among rural women. The centers provide training to young women in house keeping, health, environment, nutrition and media education.

Women are also taught handicrafts as a means of supplementary income.

 

 

Source: UCA News

Catholic and Orthodox religious orders plan dialogue during jubilee

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Catholic and Orthodox religious orders plan dialogue during jubilee

The indigenous religious order of Syro Malankarahopes its 75th anniversary of founding will begin the healing of the order, split more than 50 years ago into an Orthodox Syrian Church faction and a Syro-Malankara Catholic faction.

“As a jubilee memorial we plan to start a dialogue with our counterparts in the other Church,” Father Jerome Peedikaparampil, superior general of the Catholic faction of the Order of the Imitation of Christ told UCA News.

The jubilee year “will help us resume broken ties,” he said.

Plans will be finalized in September, Father Peedikaparampil added, when special programs for individual houses and members will be developed.

Popularly known as the Bethany Fathers, the Order of the Imitation of Christ was founded in the Orthodox Syrian Church of Malabar in 1919 by Father P.T. Geevargheese Panikkaruveetil with the aim of working for spiritual and liturgical renewal of the Orthodox Church.

The members wear saffron robes and try to preserve age-old Indian religious and ascetical traditions.

The order split in 1930 when Archbishop Mar Ivanios led a group of the Orthodox Church into communion with the Holy See. Ever since, the Catholic faction has also dedicated to the work of reunion of the separated brethren.

The Catholic faction was elevated to pontifical status in 1966.

The Bethany Orthodox faction now has about 12 priests while the Catholic faction has 102 priests working in 30 parishes, 80 seminarians and 32 institutions engaged in various apostolates.

One plan for the jubilee is to build 75 houses for poor families, according to Father Peedikaparampil.

 

Source: UCA News

Malankara Archdiocese launches legal education for activists

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Malankara Archdiocese launches legal education for activists

Leaders of voluntary associations in the Trivandrum Syro Malankara archdiocese can now fight social exploitation with the help of free legal training provided by a Church social service society.

The Malankara social service society (MSS) has opened a legal aid center for voluntary organizations in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala state, 2,780 kilometers south of New Delhi.

MSS director Father Thomas Varghese Vattaparambil says the training course aims to advance the knowledge of the volunteer participants about citizen´s fundamental rights and duties.

The volunteers will help people out of the exploitation they suffer because of ignorance of the law, he said. Though Kerala is the most literate Indian state, its people are generally ignorant of laws, and several social welfare schemes go unutilized because of this, the MSS director said.

The course has become necessary because often “the same agencies entrusted to protect our rights are denying them,” Father Vattaparambil added.

The MSS course normally runs 30 days but can be divided into four, one-week sessions with breaks. Leading lawyers and senior government officials lead the training classes teaching basic aspects of civil rights and duties.

The first session began Feb. 22 with 36 trainees, including 28 women, all under 35 years old.

“The study of law is really enriching us,” said Vincent Ambilikkonam, 28, a participant. Learning that police have to provide a copy of the legal document `First Information Report´ to the accused was a revelation to me,” he said. Seldom do the police reveal that the accused also has rights, he added.

Anitha Aranad, 22, described as “heartening information” the provision that only a woman police officer can arrest or question a woman and that she cannot be kept in the police station after 5 p.m.

Selvy Panchimood said she better understands the use of the family courts to get justice for women now, and Chacko Thottappalyl said he was enlightened by the “immense possibilities for accident compensation.”

“We have come to know of several pension and welfare schemes that go unexploited,” said Vimala Nallimmood, a legal worker.

A participant said she is now determined to complain to the government consumer protection cell if she purchases poor quality products.

“This course will be a landmark in the scheme of development envisaged by the diocese,” said Manivarnan Mulloor, a Hindu participant.

 

 

Source: UCA News

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