The crisis-ridden Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India has set a deadline to solve its decades-old liturgy dispute.
The church based in southern Kerala state has asked all defiant priests in Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese to follow the synod-approved (or “uniform”) Mass, in which the celebrant faces the altar only during the Eucharistic prayer, on or before 4 July or face expulsion.
The church’s head, Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, and Bishop Bosco Puthur, the archdiocese’s apostolic administrator, set the deadline in a joint pastoral letter issued 9 June. The church leaders also asked that the circular be read in all parishes 16 June.
Except for the archdiocese, which also is the seat of power of the Syro-Malabar church, all 34 dioceses of the church in India and abroad have implemented the synod-approved Mass.
Syro-Malabar Catholics in India, especially in the church’s primary Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly, have been embroiled in a controversy for more than two decades over the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy, which they call the Holy Qurbana: Some priests faced the altar during the entire liturgy, while others faced the congregation throughout the liturgy.
In 1999 the synod of bishops of the Syro-Malabar church issued uniform rubrics allowing the priest to face the altar during the Eucharistic prayer but face the congregation during the Liturgy of the Word and again after Communion.