Malankara Orthodox church in India is going through a grave crisis. As an informed member of laity of the Malankara Orthodox church, I am suggesting an innovative, creative solution to solve the dispute between the two factions of Orthodox church.
Some questions from the people of the church..
- For whom does a religion and a church exist, the clergy or the believers ?
- Who forms the congregation in the church. the clergy or the believers ?
- Who is funding the church, the clergy or the believers ?
- Who is donating the land for the church, the clergy or the believers ?
- Who is donating money to build the churches, the clergy or the believers ?
- Who is working for a salary from the church, the clergy or the believers ?
- Who are well informed and educated among the stakeholders, the clergy or the believers ?
- Whose ancestors are buried at the church tombs or cemeteries, the clergy or the believers ?
- Who gets on the road for the church, the clergy or the believers ?
- Who provides the money for any litigation, the clergy or the believers ?
- Who are the main beneficiaries from the church, the clergy or the believers ?
Who is the employee and who is the employer here ? It is very sad and unfair when employees boss over the employer.
We all know the very existence of the church is for the believers. The whole institution of the church is of the laity, ie. of the believers, by the believers and for the believers ..
The whole rank and file of the clergy are existing just to serve the laity in the daily activities to help in prayers to the Lord..
The clergy has many important, saintly and saner things to do than fight on the roads or in the court .. The mismanagement that has happened over the past hundred years in this case, in my opinion, has been due to the unprofessional interference by the clergy who should have restricted themselves to spiritual things.
Following saner experience and understanding, let's keep the whole clergy from both sides, out of the picture and go for a consensus among the believers.
Do the laity on both sides want to continue the fight between the factions or do they want to unite and be a united church ?
After the July 2017 SC judgement, we have already spent more than Rs. 12 crore on litigation ( Rs 120,000,000/=) just as lawyer fees to forcefully take over 40 odd Jacobite churches. How much more we have to spend to take over the other 700 odd churches forcefully ?
What great enmity and unrest are we going to create in society because of this forceful action from our side .. ?? 🤔🤔 Can we avoid this wasteful spend by offering an olive branch and lovingly taking the other faction along with us forward ?
We are already in a grave financial crisis as Federal Bank is at our throat to repay the Rs. 14 crore (Rs 140,000,000) we took as loan for the Parumala cancer hospital, and we are definitely going to falter in the repayment.
One day, the financial burden of the Parumala hospital is definitely going to fall on each member of the laity of our church. We need to see through this game plan of the clergy..
We need honest, plain speaking, bold and effective laity leadership to help solve the crisis permanently once for all.
The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace - Mahatma Gandhi 🙏🙏🙏🙏
