THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Tempers flew high at St Joseph’s Metropolitan Cathedral Church in Palayam on Sunday morning after a group of parishioners gheraoed the priest for allegedly facilitating the burial of the mortal remains of a person from another parish at the Pattoor cemetery that belongs to the Palayam church.
Parish priest T Nicholas was gheraoed by the group alleging he had facilitated burial of Midhun Markose without informing the parish council. Midhun’s body was buried a few years ago at the cemetery of Madre-de-Deus Church, Vettucaud.
Sources said since the cellar of Midhun, along with a few others, were to be removed from Vettucaud cemetery due to space constraints, his father Rayan Markose had requested for a burial vault in Pattoor. "The priest agreed to the request after taking Rs 3 lakh as donation to the church corpus. However, this was not informed to the parish council," said E Jerone, leader of Kunnukuzhy East Ward.
“The parishioners went to the priest and asked for a clarification in this matter. We asked why the mortal remains were interred at the cemetery late in the night,” said Jerone. He said the interment happened last month and the parishioners were not kept in the loop. Priest Nicholas said there was nothing fishy about the incident as he had acted as per canonical law. The church officials too denied the allegation and said all the conditions and rules were met before transferring Midhun’s mortal remains to Pattoor.
Archdiocese of Trivandrum later released a communication that took place between its higher officials and the Vettucaud church priest on October 7, 2019 that allowed shifting of the mortal remains.Higher officials from the church later met the protestors and pacified them.