The Global Knanaya Reform Movement wants action against the hierarchy of Kottayam archdiocese in Kerala
Groom Justin John and bride Vijimol Shaji pose for photographs after their traditional marriage ceremony at St. Francis Xavier’s Church in Kottody village in southern Kerala state on May 18. They were denied sacramental marriage following the endogamy practice of the Kottayam Knanaya Archdiocese. (Photo: supplied)
A lay Catholic group in India has petitioned the Vatican seeking a probe into an Eastern rite archdiocese denying the sacrament of marriage to a couple following the centuries-old practice of endogamy.
The complaint is against the Kottayam archdiocese in Kerala, which refuses its members to marry outside the archdiocese to maintain the purity of their Knanaya community.
The Global Knanaya Reform Movement (GKRM) in a complaint to Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, apostolic nuncio to India, said the archdiocese denied the mandatory no-objection letter to one of its members--Justin John-- and denied his sacrament of marriage.
“We have a court order in our support" which has asked the archdiocese to end this practice, said Biju Uthup, one of the signatories of the complaint, told UCA News on June 13.
"But still we want the intervention of the Vatican to end this unchristian practice permanently" because the archdiocese has appealed against the order in a higher court.
“The nunciature has promised to update us,” he said.
The lay group narrated the ordeal John had to face on account of his parish priest’s refusal to grant him a no-objection letter.
The marriage of John and Vijimol Shaji, a member of the Syro-Malabar Tellicherry archdiocese, was scheduled for May 18.
Their engagement was held on April 17 without any hurdles as his parish priest on April 15 issued the permission.
The couple, however, were denied a Church marriage after John's parish priest refused to issue the mandatory no-objection letter despite the priest promising to personally hand it over to the parish priest of the bride.
The couple held a symbolic customary marriage, garlanding each other, in front of St. Francis Xavier’s Church in Kerala in the presence of some 1,000 guests.
The lay group accused John's parish priest Father Sijo Stephan of creating trouble for the couple.
The archdiocese, under the eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church, used to excommunicate those marrying from other dioceses.
The Knanaya community claims to be descendants of the fourth-century Jewish-Christian trader Thomas of Kana, who came to the Kerala coast with some 70 families. They reportedly follow endogamy to maintain the "purity of their blood."
A civil court in India declared it illegal on April 30, 2021, after three decades of protracted legal battles.
The archdiocese challenged the order in the Kerala High Court in March 2022. The state's top court accepted the appeal but asked the archdiocese to follow the lower court's order until its verdict comes.
The High Court also directed the archdiocese to issue mandatory certificates to solemnize marriages of those willing to get married from other Catholic dioceses.
The Vatican on several occasions termed endogamy as an unchristian practice.
In 1986, the Congregation for the Oriental Churches opposed the move to introduce endogamy when a special ministry was established in Chicago for the migrant Knanaya Catholics.
The practice continued despite the Vatican’s instructions against it.
Following complaints in November 2015, the Vatican appointed Bishop Michael Mulhall of the Pembroke diocese in Canada to study the situation of the Knanaya community throughout the world.
The study report in 2017 said a link has “developed between the practice of endogamy and ecclesial life” and it “has been tolerated de facto in territorium proprium [Kerala] and it is not to be permitted elsewhere."
A 2019 letter from Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, the then prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, showed endogamy was still practiced in the eparchy of Chicago.
The community has no exact data on its population. However, the Archdiocese of Kottayam has some 180,000 Catholics, according to official statistics.
In the past four decades, the archdiocese excommunicated at least 40 percent of its members for marrying outside the archdiocese, say those campaigning against endogamy.
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