These appeals represent the latest round of litigation between the Patriarch and the Catholicos factions in the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. More than a century has rolled by since the said factional dispute was brought to the court. "Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone" (Romans 12 : 18) is what the Bible says, but the clergy and laity of the Church are languishing in the courts in blissful ignorance of the spirit of the said biblical verse. I think it is my duty to mention this antithesis before I proceed to decide this case on merits as I feel that there is still room for settlement of this factional dispute through conciliation.

2. Challenge in these appeals is against the decision in O.S.No.41 of 2003 on the file of the District Court, Ernakulam. The said suit is one instituted under Section 92 of the Code of Civil Procedure, hereinafter referred to as 'the Code', for short, in respect of the first defendant Church namely St.George Orthodox Syrian Church, Mannathur. The plaintiffs are a few among the Parishioners of the first defendant Church. The second defendant is the Vicar of the Church. According to the plaintiffs, the first defendant being a Parish Church under the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, it is to be administered in accordance with the Constitution of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church formulated in the year 1934. It is alleged in the plaint that as per the said Constitution, the Vicar of the Parish Church has to call a 'pothuyogam' of the Parishioners every year to elect the office bearers for the Parish Church and since the second defendant is not taking steps to conduct election to the various offices in the Parish Church as provided for in the Constitution, defendants 3, 4 and 5 who were elected earlier to the office of the trustees and secretary of the Church are continuing as trustees and secretary of the Church even after the expiry of their term. It is also alleged by the plaintiffs that defendants 3, 4 and 5 are not maintaining proper accounts of the income and expenditure of the Church and are misappropriating the funds of the Church. The plaintiffs have, therefore, claimed among others, a mandatory injunction directing the second defendant to call a 'pothuyogam' of the Parishioners of the Church for election to its Managing Committee in accordance with the 1934 Constitution of the Church.

3. Defendants 1, 3, 4 and 5 filed a joint written statement contending, among others, that the first defendant Church has never accepted the 1934 Constitution and the same, on the other hand, was being administered in accordance with Ext.B3 Udambady executed in the year 1890. According to them, as per the terms of Ext.B3 Udambady, the Parishioners of the Church are bound to obey and stand with the Patriarch of Antioch and the Metropolitans ordained by him. It is stated by them that when the Apex Court held in P.M.A. Metropolitan v. Moran Mar Thomas (AIR 1995 SC 2001) that the Church is liable to be administered in accordance with the 1934 Constitution, the Parishioners of the first defendant Church convened a meeting and accepted the Constitution of the Jacobite Syrian Christan Association. According to them, the first defendant Church thus disassociated with Malankara Association and became part of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Association and the Church is being administered thereafter in accordance with the Constitution of the said Association. It was also contended by the said defendants that since the first defendant Church was not a party to P.M.A.Metropolitan's case (supra), the decision in the said case is not binding on the first defendant Church.

4. While defendants 2 and 6 filed a written statement supporting the contentions raised by the plaintiffs, defendants 7 to 27 filed a separate written statement supporting the contentions of defendants 3, 4 and 5. In addition, defendants 7 to 27 also contended that since the plaintiffs have disowned the Patriarch of Antioch, they h