Revenue authorities, backed by the Muvattupuzha police, took over the 85-year-old St. George’s church at Mudavoor, near Muvattupuzha, from the Jacobite faction of the Malankara Church on Tuesday noon and handed it over to the Orthodox faction.
A State official said the takeover was peaceful in the presence of a strong posse of police personnel. It was handed over to the Orthodox faction as per a Supreme Court order on July 3, 2017.
The court had ordered that there should be no parallel administration in the parishes of the Malankara Church and that all churches should be governed by the Church constitution of 1934. Members of the Orthodox faction later offered prayers at the church.
“Extremely pained”
Father Sleeba Paul Vattavelil, priest trustee of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, said the faction was extremely pained by the government action.
In a statement here, he said the Jacobites had been offering worship at the church for 88 years. There were only 15 families of the Orthodox faction in the parish while there were 357 parishioners of the Jacobites, he claimed.
The Orthodox faction had its own church in Mudavoor since 1982, he added.
