Babu Paul's Rumblings On Newly Consecrated Catholicose

It is a certain commonly accepted civility that people wish well when someone occupies a high office or for that matter on any significant achievement.Irrespective of whether one has difference of opinion with that person or not. Such common civilities are a way of nice behavior .It also demands that while doing so,one should not rake up controversies or unsavory issues that might be there between the person being complimented or the one who is giving it.If one has serious difference of opinion,one can either refrain from wishing or even go to the extent of voicing the difference without pretending to compliment the reciever.But presenting such differences under the  pretext of complementing the person is like sugarcoated poison or wolf in the lamb's skin.

These thoughts occurred to me on reading Dr D Babu Paul's article "Mangala Nerunnu"that appeared in Knanaya Deepam,and subsiquently republished in Mangalam Daily.No one can deny a person holding a view which he thinks is right and propagating it.All that I am saying is that he could have done it without pretending to be wishing H.H.Paulos II on his accession to the throne.

All that is about niceties.People like Babu Paul may have their own definitions for civilised behavior,let us leave that out and come to the specifics.His first point is that not inviting the Patriarch of Antioch for the consecration of the Catholicose is in violation of the 1934 Constitution of MOC.Let us examine that .It is true that the constitution has such a proviso.But it also specifies that this invitation is conditional to the existence of a Patriarch of Antioch duly approved by  MOC .The Supreme Court Judgment of1995 has approved HH Marthoma Mathews II as Catholicose of MOC,but does not say anything about the status of HH ZachiusI.The process of reconciliation the Supreme Court had envisaged by that judgment has only been partly fulfilled.Therefore the present  Patriarch of Antioch's positon vis-a-vis the constitution of 1934 is still in doubt.There has been any number of violation of Constitution by the Patriarch like consecration of Bishops in the Indian Church without the approval of Malankara Association,,visits to Churches in India without invitation from the Constitutional Catholicose,to name a few.How can a person who pays no heed to the provisions of the Constitution claim the benefits of that Constitution?

One can approach this from another angle.The Kalpana of HH Abdul Massiha after the consecration of the first Catholicose of Malankara says that the synod of Malankara can consecrate Catholicose as and when the need arises without reference to Antioch.The fact that HH Abdul Masiha  was a CANONICAL Patriarch bears testimony even today by the presence of HH at Kurkuma Monastery where the Tombs of the Patriarchs of Antioch are situated.Therefore if one accepts the argument that the present patriarch is above constitution,the same applies to HH Abdumasiha too....

I know that this  line of argument is little far stretched.But I am confident that it is not absurd like that of the Jacobite fanatics