# Malankara Orthodox-Jacobite church dispute

The Malankara Orthodox-Jacobite church dispute or the Schism of 1912 was the split in the Malankara Syrian Church that led to an ongoing series of church disputes in Kerala, India. The dispute, also known as the Second Community Case or the Second Vaṭṭippaṇa Case (Malayalam: രണ്ടാം സമുദായക്കേസ്, രണ്ടാം വട്ടിപ്പണക്കേസ്), has been intertwined with continuous litigations and has resulted in the formation of two rival church bodies, namely the autocephalous Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church, an autonomous church under the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate of Antioch. Although the Indian supreme court judgement of 1995 made a terminal legal conclusion of the dispute, the disagreements related to the administration of the parish church property continues to cause occasional law and order problems and significant obstruction to a permanent solution of the dispute. The dispute in three of these parishes was moved to the court and its final verdict was made by the Supreme Court in 2017, in favour of the Malankara Orthodox Church.
The dispute remains unresolved, and police interventions to implement the judgement continue to meet intense protest and confrontation in churches currently administered by the Jacobite Church. The continuing dispute also led to increased sectarianism among members of the once undivided community and the solidification of the schism between the two rival factions.

## First schism

In 1908, Monk is Vattasseril, having been elected as Malankara Metropolitan by the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Christian Association, travelled to Mardin to be consecrated as a bishop by Ignatius Abded Aloho II, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. He was accompanied by another bishop-elect, Monk Paulose Kochuparambil. The patriarch consecrated Vattasseril with the episcopal name as Dionysios Giwargis and Kochuparambil as Kurillos Paulose at the recently acquired Saint Mark's Monastery in Jerusalem. This was a period of intense tribulations for the Syriac Orthodox Church in the Syrian heartland. The members of the church were being subjected to an ethnic genocide and the leadership of the church was divided between Ignatius Abded Aloho II and Ignatius Abdal Masih II, his deposed predecessor. Abded Aloho II had the official recognition from the Ottoman Sultan but Abdal Masih II continued to enjoy significant support in Mardin, the traditional bastion of the church.
Upon arriving in the country and assuming power, Dionysios soon came into conflict with his co-trustees, Kora Mathan Malpan and C. J. Kurien. According to the decision of the Mulanthuruthi Synod of 1876, the church properties such as Vattipanam and the Syrian Seminary of Kottayam were to be administered collectively by three elected trustees, which included the Malankara Metropolitan or Metropolitan Trustee, and his co-trustees, namely the Priest trustee and the Lay trustee. The co-trustees complained with the Patriarch protesting Dionysius' arbitrary decisions and disregard for them. Taking advantage of this conflict, the patriarch attempted to gain control over the temporal assets of the Church. According to the Travancore Royal Court judgement of 1889, the Patriarch's authority was limited spiritual authority over the Malankara Church. Dionysius, who assessed that the Patriarch was attempting to take action against him with the support of his opponents, refused to sign the instrument of submission asked by the Patriarch. Following this, the Patriarch suspended Dionysios and declared him deposed, replacing him with Kochuparambil Kurilos as the Malankara Metropolitan. This resulted in a schism in the Malankara Church. In the dispute, those who supported Patriarch "Bava" were called the "Bava party" and those who supported "Metran" Dionysius Vattasseril were called the "Metran party". Among these, the Bava faction evolved into the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church and the Methran faction evolved into the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.