The Mary John Akhouri burial: An opportunity to discuss religion in public for the benefit of the masses

Mary John Akhouri (aka Madhu Jyotsana Akhouri) was denied a burial in her mother church, the St. John's Attamangalam Jacobite Church, Kumarakom because the church argued that she did not possess a membership which she had forfeited due to her marriage to Dr. Akhouri, a Hindu. She was then buried in another church. Mary Akhouri is the grand mother of Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra and this was one of the main reasons of the story being reported in the mainline media. Priyanka herself called it an unfortunate incident while the Jacobite bishop of the Kottayam diocese H. G. Thomas Themotheos called it inhuman and unchristian. The church in question through its vicar and committee stood their ground and said that this was what any church under the Jacobite fold would do and a burial was denied not just because of Ms. Akhouri’s intercaste marriage but because she had never renewed her membership in the church. Her relative though from the same church said that Ms. Akhouri had confessed to a priest and had communion from the same church two years ago.

It is easy to point fingers at this moment but we should also be understanding on several fronts. We should be understanding to Ms. Mary Akhouri who was a hard working person, a freedom fighter and a member of the legislative assembly in Bihar. We should also be understanding to Ms. Priyanka Chopra because it is not fair to come down heavily on her because she is a famous actor and she is rich. In many ways even though it is easy to criticize the church we should also try and understand the policies of the church, irrespective of whether they are good or bad.

Was the priest correct to say no to a burial in a church under his leadership? Did he also refuse to conduct the service despite a directive from his own bishop? The priest must have in all probability used his experience, the church tradition and the collective wisdom of the church committee to come to an understanding. Was he wrong in doing so? I don’t think so and I will explain why. A priest is taught in a regional seminary to follow the rules and traditions of the church that he is pastoring in. In this case the marriage of Mary John to a person from a different religion must have disqualified her from church membership. Whether the church actually did follow any procedure in intimating Ms. Akhouri or her family in Kerala about the cancellation of the membership is not known to us. The priest only followed instructions which he learnt. Which religion teaches priests to be compassionate or humane? Which priest is given permission to follow his heart and not the rules? If that was the case would so many people die in the name of religion in India? Wouldn’t India be absolutely inter religious and unified in diversity? So if at all, the church, religions and the society has to be questioned as to what their roles are? Is it to unify people or to create discord among people? Priests in all religions end up being spokespersons of their own community and don’t go beyond that. It is true that the bishop seems to have sent the priest a directive. One way forward was for everyone to meet and sort out the issue. But aren’t there deeper issues which cannot be sorted out with one directive from the bishop?

What are the issues that come to the forefront through this? What is the policy of religions to inter caste marriage? What is the belief of religions with regard to people of other religions coming to their sacred space and partaking of their blessings? Are people of all castes allowed in all temples, are Hindus allowed in mosques, are all people from all religions and other denominations given communion in churches, are women allowed in the holy of holies of religious spaces? There are many underlying issues in the issue of denying a decent burial. Are we ready to talk about them?

Couples who opt for inter caste weddings are killed and brutalized for falling in love and this is justified by politicians, religious leaders and high caste families. Why don’t people come together against this? Women in the Syrian churches are married out of the church. They join the church of the husband and then severe ties with their mother church. Why should it be this way and why can’t women still be part of their own church? Mary Roy created history by fighting for the rights to her ancestral property and through that came into the bad books of her Syrian church and interestingly all of this happened in Kottayam. Mary Roy, the illustrious mother of Arundathi Roy fought for and got a judgement from the court granting equal rights to ancestral property for women. The church was uncomfortable with Mary Roy and the verdict, and this continues even now because Mary Roy has not been felicitated for the great work that she has done. This has been the context of the priests and how they have experienced ministry in the church.

The humanity and Christian values that they have to show in the church they are ministering in also gives second priority to women in almost all things. This is so for burial as well when the face of the deceased is preferably covered during the last rites by the son or another male member of the family and not a woman. Recently I also observed some priests insisting that when a woman was buried the church should not use a silver plated cross but a wooden cross because the husband was still alive! This has been the context in which a priest has come up. Any reaction to a new situation is only based on what he has experienced right from childhood up till becoming a priest. In many cases priests do not completely agree with what is being followed in church. An example of this is that girl babies are not taken to the altar after baptism while male babies are taken, creating a clear division between boys and girls. Many priests now do not agree with this but keep quiet knowing not what to do.

As I mentioned before it is not fair to come down heavily on Priyanka Chopra or her family for what has happened. So we can consider Mary John Akhouri as our own grand mother. What else should we have done to make her memory live on and for her last wish to come true? We should for starters try and understand the system of the church and debate and seek change of any archaic and wrong traditions followed in the church which are beneficial only for a certain section. Why are women treated as second class citizens in the church even though the theology of the church says that God has created man and woman in God’s image and likeness? Can’t we question caste based traditions still followed, sometimes unknowingly and sometimes with clear cut intentions? People inside and outside the church approach the church mainly for baptism, marriage and burial. But shouldn’t we also be approaching the church at other times and debate with the church about the culture of the land and about a society which is very multi lingual and multi cultural? Any loss of a family member is sad but that is the case for all families. When other people and families are discriminated against on the basis of caste, class, gender and religion why do we keep quiet and maintain a status quo? It is time to debate and time to change.

But again it is not to say that we have to do something new in the context of new challenges but to also see what are the corruptions that have come into the church because of cultural pressures and thus go back to the bible and read what it says. The concept of a cemetery is new and is not mentioned in the bible though having a tomb for people is. In John 11:38 it says “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.” There is no suggestion that this was a cemetery. In Genesis 23:9 Abraham seeks a place to bury Sarah and the verse says “That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place.” In the Old Testament as well we read about tombs and not cemeteries. In John 19:38-42 Jesus is also placed in a tomb after his crucifixion. “After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.” So even Jesus was not buried in a cemetery. But then Jesus showed us the importance of his resurrection over his death.

It is important that the church and civil society work together and that the church should be a corrective for civil society and when necessary civil society should also be critical of the church. One should not get into the narrative of church vs civil society or church vs the media but should look ahead at what can be done so that all who live and all who pass on are equally honored because they are a creation of God. Why is it that people in the church and people belonging to civil society keep quiet or are not expressive enough when people who died were not given a decent and honorable burial because of church feuds? Why weren’t the people involved including priests then not questioned enough about the inhuman and unchristian approach to dead persons? Was that person not a human being? Why don’t we pose enough questions when the funeral rites are done two times, one each by different denominations wanting to assert their supremacy through such acts? Why do we remain quiet when the pulpit is used for preaching hatred, caste supremacy and gender difference?

We have in numerous ways humiliated various living persons and dead persons by our actions in the religious sphere. Mary John Akhouri was not singled out for discrimination but that does not mean that she did not deserve better. It is time that various religions and denominations got together to look at their similarities rather than preach their differences. It is an opportunity to talk about topics usually not encouraged to be discussed in the open. It is also a space for us to gather in public and openly express our religious beliefs including and not excluding the other. If we can do this in the name of Mary John Akhouri and other women and men before her then we will end up respecting them forever. Anything less than that will only lead to the disrespect and humiliation of the soul of Mary John Akhouri. May God guide us.

Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas: The equinox on which the church rode three decades.

The Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, H.H. Moran Mor Iganatius Zakka I Iwas is no more. The Holy Father who lead his sheep for 34 years is now a memory. As funeral service dates and the place of the funeral have been fixed and as people are waiting to be a part of the funeral, in person and online, one must bring grief, loss and confusion into perspective to come to terms with what has happened.

The patriarch did have health issues which were also linked with age but no one expected an end now. So much that many faithful in India are still waking up to the fact that their spiritual leader won’t be coming to India again to meet them and share his love with them. His passing away is a loss in definite terms to everyone who knew him personally, those who saw him from far and those who read and heard about him.

Grief has to have a way of being dealt with and when a national or church leader dies we try to deal with the grief that we have. The Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas is and was seen as a spiritual father to all the faithful in the church. The grief we are trying to deal with today is the grief of having lost a father. Seeing pictures of the patriarch in church and even in houses has been a constant for these 34 years. It was the feeling that when you entered the two common and most warm places in your life, your Holy Father was there to greet you. That was a constant and this removal of the constant becomes one of the significant aspects of the grief felt. It is like saying that wherever we went and whatever we did, we could come back to our house and to our church and see this familiar face which would put us at ease.

The loss felt at this point of time is of having lost the person who stood as the symbol of leadership for everyone. He was the sublime face of what is and what isn’t. Losing out on this face and the memories which come with it, make us feel that we have lost something so deep, committed and fixated in our hearts and minds that we cannot replace this with anything else. One has only one father and somehow another face cannot replace this immediately. The throne of the patriarch and the authority of the patriarch go beyond the personality of the patriarch but never the less the personality touches us in more ways than the throne or the authority can.

The confusion for the people is what happens next? Who will be the next patriarch and will that person be able to fulfill all that the Patriarch Ignatius Zakka Iwas has been to all? This confusion adds to the grief of having lost our father. It is the pain of uncertainty coupled with loss that makes grief even so much more hurtful. Many of us have already experienced this with the passing away of our parent/s. This puts us back in time to a place when we lost many things and it took time to get back to our normal lives. This time our mind tells us that we are repeating this feeling in our lives.

There are several things that give us solace and hope at this time though. The patriarch was born in an ordinary family and had an ordinary life style. He joined the seminary like any other youngster who wanted to serve the church. Iraq where he was born and Syria where he then lived went through severe strife and violence. The violence in Syria continues till date. He has had to deal with Muslim Christian tensions which come with living in the same place and having a shared culture but different belief. He had to bear witness to the migration that people in his church had to undertake from their own land. He has watched the schism that affected his church in India. In essence, the patriarch watched not just the best of what happened in the church but the worst of what happened. His enthronement and period as Patriarch went through suffering and violence. But he withstood all of this with utmost sincerity and passion for service. At this time of grief this gives us constant solace and hope. The Patriarch stood his ground no matter what and so will we, because we are after all his followers.

Such problems in his own church did not deter him from being ecumenical. He fostered good relationships with other churches and set forth a great precedent in church relations by coming together with Pope John Paul II to sign a historic agreement of acknowledging the misunderstandings that crept into the churches and looking at the way forward. His straight and up right relationship with various sister churches and with member churches in the WCC showed time and again that he was as ecumenical as a Patriarch could be and one should be proud of that.

His scholarship and academic interest lead him to pen several articles and a study of these articles exposes the openness and just theology of the Patriarch. His article on women in the church is a reminder to the people in the church that God does not take sides and if at all takes sides with the weak in society. His articles therefore become a good resource for further research and study. Perhaps his basic seminary education in Syria and his further education in the U.S. together with his experience as an observer in the Second Vatican Council and his association with the World Council of Churches as one of its president’s gave him the openness to see theology and doctrine as it is instead of seeing it as how he wanted to see it. His wish to have a place of education and research lead him to build the seminary in Syria called the Mor Ephrem Seminary and Monastery at Ma’arrat Saydanaya in Syria, where incidentally he will be buried. It further made him remark that seminary and theological education in the church was very important and hence the church needed theologically educated priests. His love for the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Theological Seminary is well known and his penchant for a system and a framework made him do things in the way that the Indian church wanted it at times. Scholarships in the Patriarch’s name were made available not just to Syrian Orthodox candidates but also to Orthodox Syrian, Marthoma and other Syrian church denominations. I think it wouldn’t be far fetched to say that other sister church denominations made use of foreign scholarships in comparison to our own church members. But we can see this as a good approach that the Patriarch followed in which he chose to give away a scholarship instead of seeing it go waste. The gloominess and vacuum of his departure can be made up to an extend by encouraging theological education and research in the Syrian Orthodox Church in India. We would be honouring the Holy Father by such a distinguished decision and move.

The Patriarch’s passing away on March 21 also signifies a special day, when usually on the 20th or 21st , night and day are almost on equal terms. It is also a day used to calculate the Easter date every year. The Easter date is calculated as the first Sunday after the full moon occurring on or after the Vernical Equinox or Spring Equinox, that is, after March 21. The Spring Equinox signifies that the son is betrayed, dies and is resurrected to attain eternal life. March 21 is seen as important by many religions. The Parsis commemorate it as the beginning of spring and the beginning of the New Year. It is also seen as the time of the fight between good and evil and of good emerging victorious. His passing away at a well placed time could suggest something hope filled to the church suffering from civil war in Syria.

A leader is a leader not just by the position he or she occupies but of what the leader makes of that position. The Patriarch vociferously expressed his expression for his flock. His four visits to India and his numerous visits around the world to meet people in the church were moments of the leader reaching out to his people. This was despite his flailing health and weak knees. Anyone who visited him felt the warmth and hospitality of a human being more than a leader. This raised his stature among the people and attracted people to him. One church member grieved the passing away of the patriarch and reminisced of his experience with the Patriarch saying that he felt a positive energy when he stood next to the Patriarch. His sadness was not just of the passing away but of the thought that he could not experience this positive energy anymore. This positive energy can make people attracted to a leader to the point that they feel assured and confident in the presence of such a leader. The Patriarch managed time and again to become a soothing presence to his people and to those who met him.

The Patriarch managed to bring more people to the church by seeing the change in times. Within the traditional understanding of the church he understood that when ordinary people want to come to the church, the doors of the church cannot be closed completely to them. This may have prompted the Patriarch to accept two churches from South America into the Syrian Orthodox fold. The first number about 100,000 and are from Brazil and the second number a whopping 800,000 and are from Guatemala. Such openness may also provide hope for many others all over the world. Whatever was the reason for the Patriarch to do this, the positive ramifications of this will provide more vigour to the church and prove that the church is much beyond specific race and tradition.

To sum up, the Patriarch Ignatius Zakka Iwas has managed to be a Patriarch and a true Holy Father for all the faithful. His spirituality, theology, and above all humanity have been something which the coming generations can emulate. Even as we grieve, the Holy Father has given us the hope of spring and resurrection. He has made us look forward to the rest of lent with renewed vigour, faith and hope. More than grief, he has reminded us of a new beginning and a fresh start. This is centred on the faith in the resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord. Go in peace our Holy Father and keep praying for us.

(The author is the small boy in between the then Patriarch Ignatius Yacoub III and the present Catholicose Baselios Thomas I.)