The Kerala government has decided to form a Cabinet sub-committee to amicably end the ongoing row between the warring Orthodox and Jacobite church factions under the Malankara Church. Minister for Industries and CPI (M) leader EP Jayarajan will be the convener of the Committee. The members of the Committee are Minister for Revenue E Chandrasekharan, Minister for Transport AK Saseendran, Minister for Ports Ramachandran Kadannappally, and Minister for Water Resources K Krishnankutty.
The sub-committee has representatives from four allies of the CPI (M) in the Left Democratic Front government. E Chandrasekharan is a leader of the CPI, Kadannappally is from Congress (S), Saseendran represents the Nationalist Congress Party, and Krishnankutty is from the Janata Dal (Secular).
K Krishnankutty told TNM that a meeting of the sub-committee is likely to be held on Thursday and the decision on how to begin with will be taken in that meeting.
On Monday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the government will do its best to end the feud between the two factions, which has taken several undesirable course of events in recent times, with both the factions make their stands firm. The Chief Minister for the first time broke his silence on the issue saying that the government will do the needful.
The rival factions of the Syrian Orthodox Church are the Orthodox and the Jacobites. The Orthodox form the majority. The headquarters of the Orthodox Church is in Kottayam. The Jacobites, however, consider the Patriarch of Antioch based in Beirut as their Supreme leader.
Pinarayi had said that the government will make necessary interventions to see how best the issues can be sorted out; whether both the factions will be invited together or separate discussions will be held with both groups.
Recently tensions ran high at two prominent churches at Piravom and Kothamangalam as supporters of the opposing factions took on each other over control of the churches.
Jacobite faction members took out mass protests and demonstrations after the Supreme Court ruling handing over the control of these churches to the Orthodox faction, not to implement the verdict and even physically blocked Orthodox clergymen who attempted to enter.