THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will hold a second round of talks on Monday to resolve the century-old dispute on the Malankara Church issue. The intermediary talks — scheduled for 3pm in Thiruvananthapuram — will see both the Jacobite and Orthodox factions sitting together in the meeting chaired by the chief minister after decades.
The first round of separate talks with the two warring factions held on September 21 under the aegis of the CM had failed. The Jacobite faction’s demand to conduct a referendum among believers was rejected by the Orthodox faction which urged the CM to implement the Supreme Court verdict. The Supreme Court had ordered the LDF government to take over the churches and to hand them over to the Orthodox faction. This had not gone down well with the Jacobite faction which demanded that a conclusive decision be taken only after hearing from a majority of the faithful.
Though the Jacobite faction exuded confidence after the first round of CM-led talks, the Orthodox faction had taken a stand that any discussion should be based only on the apex court order. They had also expressed their displeasure over the state government’s move to come up with an ordinance in case the stalemate continues even after holding discussions with both parties.