A group of 21 priests of the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly began a prayer vigil and fast outside the residence on 9 January, while 54 bishops attended the thirty-third meeting on 6-11 January of the Church’s synod – its highest decision-making authority as one of the 23 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches.
They were protesting disciplinary proceedings against clergy who oppose the “uniform rite” of the Syro-Malabar liturgy, and demanded the removal of priests appointed to the diocesan curia by the former apostolic administrator Bishop Bosco Puthur.
On 11 January, police arrested 20 priests who resisted removal from the residence in Kochi, in the southern state of Kerala. Footage of the confrontation also circulated online drawing crowds to the protests around the entrance gate, with 200 others also arrested during the unrest.
A police sub-inspector alleged the priests, who were gathered illegally, had attacked him, tore his uniform, pushed him down and he sustained a fracture to his ribs and bruises to his elbow, chest and wrist. The priests filed a complaint to the state police chief and other civil authorities, reporting that ten of them suffered injuries in the clash.
At a meeting overnight on Sunday, the priests agreed to end their protests after Archbishop Joseph Pamplany of Tellicherry, the newly-appointed vicar and apostolic administrator of the archeparchy, agreed to some of their demands and to further talks on 20 January.
The synod, which also met in Kochi, had appointed Archbishop Pamplany after Bishop Puthur resigned in December. Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, the Syro-Malabar primate, nominally heads the archeparchy.
After the four-hour meeting with Pamplany and the district collector, the protesters issued a statement saying they had agreed to return to their parishes on the understanding that the archeparchy would cease disciplinary proceedings against priests and replace the staff of its curial bodies. It also agreed to remove police from the archbishop’s house by 20 January to allow entry without any restriction, according to Riju Kanjookaran, a lay leader of the group. The protesting priests signed an agreement to this effect.
Fr Joyce Kaithakottil, a priest in the archeparchy who began the protests with a three-day hunger strike from January 7, said they were meant to “awaken the voice of morality against misuse of power”.
The dispute between clergy and the hierarchy originated in the synod’s order in 2021 that all of its 35 dioceses implement the “uniform rite” of the Syro-Malabar liturgy, the Holy Qurbana, with the Liturgy of the Eucharist celebrated ad orientem.
Clergy and laity in Ernakulam-Angamaly have refused, maintaining an entirely versus populum liturgy. This dissent enflamed existing hostilities towards the Church leadership, which has faced separate accusations of malpractice and corruption.
Under an agreement reached in July last year, Church leaders permitted clergy to celebrate just one uniform rite liturgy on Sundays and other feast days in every parish, besides other liturgies in their preferred form. However, Bishop Puthur later said this was just a “temporary concession”.