India's Syro Malabar Church begins Synod amid liturgy row

A crucial meeting of the India-based Eastern rite Syro Malabar Church’s Synod of Bishops began amid a simmering decades-old liturgy dispute over the rubrics of Mass.

Jan 06, 2025

Some members of the Synod of Bishops of the India-based Syro-Malabar Church when they met Pope Francis in May 2024 to discuss the vexed issues related to an ongoing liturgy dispute. (Photo:syromalabarchurch)


A crucial meeting of the India-based Eastern rite Syro Malabar Church’s Synod of Bishops began amid a simmering decades-old liturgy dispute over the rubrics of Mass.

Some 54 serving and retired bishops are attending the Jan. 6-11 meeting at Mount St Thomas, the headquarters of the crisis-ridden Church in southern Kerala state.

“The bishops will discuss all important issues that affect the Church and the society at large,” Father Antony Vadakkekara, spokesperson of the Church, told UCA News on Jan. 6.

The Vincentian priest, however, refused to divulge specific details of the agenda saying, “We don’t generally disclose the agenda of the meeting in advance.”

The Synod, the highest decision-making body of the Church, assumes significance as a majority of priests and laity in the Church's Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese have rejected the official liturgy, in which the celebrant faces the altar during the Eucharistic prayer.

They want to continue with their traditional Mass, during which the celebrant faces the congregation throughout.

Ernakulam-Angamaly is the biggest archdiocese, with more than half a million Catholics. It is also the seat of the Church's head, Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil.

The warring priests and laity also continue to boycott Bishop Bosco Puthur, the apostolic administrator, and members of his curia following the breakdown of a truce reached in July 2024.

Vadakkekara evaded a question on whether the bishops would hold fresh talks with the priests and laity in the troubled archdiocese.

A Church official, however, confirmed that the priests and lay leaders informed a couple of bishops that “there will not be any compromise on our stand.”

“We have informed that the apostolic administrator and his curia should honor the July 2024 agreement,” an archdiocesan official who did not want to be named told UCA News on Jan.6.

According to the July agreement, the priests and the laity agreed to celebrate one Mass following the official rubrics on Sundays and other feast days in every parish. During the official liturgy, the celebrant faces the altar during the Eucharistic prayer. 

However, the peace pact was breached in October after Puthur insisted that deacons give a written undertaking that they would only celebrate the official mode of Mass after their priestly ordination.

The Church leader said, “Any attempt to force upon us the Synod Mass will not be accepted,” and “the boycott will continue, and no orders would be acceptable.”

The deacons who were ordained after they gave a written undertaking, as Puthur demanded, were not allowed by parishioners to celebrate Mass in their home parishes.

The decades-old liturgy dispute further deepened on Dec. 3, 2024, when parishioners blocked the entry of newly appointed priest administrators at three parishes.

The parishioners gathered outside the main gates of the parishes in Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese. They did not allow the administrators, appointed by Puthur, to enter the church premises.

They also shouted slogans against the apostolic administrator, accusing him of creating fresh unrest during the advent season by appointing administrators over parish priests.

The priests and laity further stepped up their defiance when four priests who Puthur debarred from parish ministry concelebrated Mass with other priests in their parishes.

Hundreds of Catholics and scores of priests joined the debarred priests.

The defiant actions began on Dec. 20, two days after Puthur initiated the disciplinary action for disobeying a Church decree to follow the official Mass in their parishes.

The four priests defied his order and continued to run the parishes with the support of the laypeople. They also filed cases in a local court challenging the arbitrary action.

“Our stand is clear. Suppose the Synod wants a lasting solution to the liturgy dispute. In that case, it should honor the July agreement,” said Riju Kanjookaran, spokesperson of the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency (AMT), a body of priests, religious, and laity leading the protest in support of their traditional Mass.

The priests and laity have also announced a three-day indefinite hunger strike Jan. 7-9. It will be held on the roadside close to the St Mary’s Cathedral Basilica Church in Ernakulam district.

Father Joyce Kaithakottil, a rebel priest, will lead the hunger strike, concluding with a protest in front of the Church headquarters.

The Syro-Malabar is the second-largest Eastern Rite Church with 5 million followers, spread over 35 dioceses in India and abroad.

Though the liturgy dispute is over five decades old except for the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, other dioceses have adopted the Synod-approved official Mass since November 2021.

The protracted dispute has seen clashes, hunger strikes, the burning of effigies, police cases, and the closure of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Ernakulam.--ucanews.com

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