SC ends decades-long conflict in Kerala church citing '17 verdict

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Jacobite group to transfer control of disputed churches to the Orthodox group in a long-standing conflict between the two factions of the Malankara Church, one of Kerala's prominent non-Catholic Christian communities.

- Utkarsh Anand

A bench comprising justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan underscored the importance of adhering to its 2017 judgment, which upheld the validity of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church's 1934 constitution to govern the administration of its churches, and voiced disapproval of involving the state government and police to resolve such religious disputes rather than settling them internally.

The Malankara Church first split in 1912 into Jacobite and Orthodox factions. Although the groups reunified briefly in 1959, the truce dissolved in 1972, reigniting disputes over the ownership and administration of over 1,000 churches and their associated properties.