A few months back, a Kerala church refused to bury Madhu Jyotsna Akhouri, Priyanka Chopra's grandmother in the church ground. It was her last wish to be buried in this church, which was where she was baptized in and which her father had helped to construct. There was a wave of indignation and resentment at this stubborn and obstinate behavior of the church from many quarters, including the Christian fraternity as well. It is worthwhile to delve a little deep into this unfortunate incident and put things in perspective.
Madhu Jyotsana Akhauri was born Mary John in St John’s Attamangalam parish in Kumarakom, Kerala. After completing a nursing course in Kerala, she went to Bihar to pursue a means of livelihood and found her life partner in a Hindu named Dr. Akhouri. She carved a niche for herself in Bihar, making a mark as a social activist, freedom fighter and former legislator of Bihar. Yet she never forgot her roots and maintained her ties with the church in which she was baptized. Incidentally, she had partaken of the Holy Eucharist couple of years before her death in that church. Her last wish to be laid to rest at the cemetery of her home parish was turned down by the church authorities as she had married a Hindu an lived a Hindu way of life. Traditions and customs are more sacred than the sentiments of Priyanka, the church said. It was not about the sentiments of Priyanka. It was about respecting the simple and heartfelt wish of a person to be laid to rest in her family cemetery amongst her kith and kin. It was sad that human sentiment was crushed at the altar of dogma and orthodoxy. A mythical time honored notion of purity was more sacrosanct to us than honoring and fulfilling the last wishes of a departed soul. Mary John was born in the church parish and baptized in the church. She grew up within the precincts of the church diocese. Her forebears lie interred in the soil of the church cemetery. The church should have accepted her in death in a return of the prodigal kind of way. Christ in his life displayed exemplary examples love, compassion and forgiveness, which ought to be emulated by every human. He embraced the wanderer, the prodigal, the sinner in his hold. The Jacobite church in Kerala failed to embrace one of theirs. As such, this act of denial by the church was not only unchristian, but inhumane too. Ironically, Pope Francis had declared 2016 as the ‘Year of Mercy’ exhorting Christians to ‘be merciful just as the Father in Heaven is merciful to you.' Sadly, this mercy and compunction didn't seem to be forthcoming from the church. It is one of the events which makes us take a cynical second look at religion and the assorted dogmas and ossified traditions wrought by it. Here religion plays less of an enabler and more of an anarchic, vitiating force. Same subject, a different slant. Ecclesiastical canons and conventions are inscribed in stone with no leeway for exceptions. The church confers membership to individuals who partake in the requisite minimum church activities and pays a nominal subscription fees annually, which is used for maintenance of the church and paying the salary of the priests. Mary John was not a Christian for marrying a Hindu and leading a ‘non-christian’ way of life, she was not an active member of the church and hence deemed unfit for a christian burial. The sacristy and the church property is owned collectively, by the members that is. The burial ground is the sanctum sanctorum, and to be accorded the privilege to be buried in its inviolable soil in your death requires that you be a legitimate member of the church in your lifetime. This honor cannot be bestowed on the guest who makes an occasional presence to partake in Eucharist or make a confession, but never shouldered the day to day responsibilities of the church. The church is an autonomous institution and hence is under no obligation to cede cemetery space to a ‘non member’ on the basis of the deceased’s ‘last wishes’, especially where burial space is limited and has been allotted specifically for burial of church members. The deceased showed a duplicity by marrying outside the Syrian orthodoxy and settling into a pagan groove during her life, yet desiring a Christian burial in her death. If you cease to be a functioning member of the church in your life you relinquish the right to be buried in its consecrated soil in your death.
Not coercing any particular view point here. Just drawing a silhouette for the reader to join the dots.
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