KOCHI: Metropolitan Trustee and Catholicos of the Jacobite Church Mar Baselious Thomas I has resigned from his post. This follows aggression from outside his flock over the Orthodox-Jacobite dispute as well as internal squabbles brewing steadily within his Church.

A letter to this effect seeking the permission of the Patriarch of Antioch Mar Aphrem II was dispatched on Saturday.

Though the request was accepted, Patriarch Bhava has asked Mar Baselious to continue as Catholicos Bhava. He informed that three Metropolitans will be assigned to help Bhava and a new trustee will be elected during the next Synod.

In the letter he had made a request to relieve him from the post of Metropolitan Trustee as there was conspiracy against him in the church. The new administrative committee is behind the conspiracy and he is deeply saddened by it.

In his letter to the Patriarch, the Catholicos regrets that some members of his Church are solely interested in maligning his reputation, through publicised letters, as is evident from a letter which was spread through social media and had been signed by the Clergy Trustee Fr Sleeba Paul Vattavelil Cor Episcopa and Lay Trustee C K Shaji Chundayil on Friday. Certain remarks made in the said letter were deeply vengeful and purposefully written to misinform the faithful.

“Furthermore, the meetings of the official bodies frequently get disrupted by individuals who act according to the interests of these office-bearers and therefore it has become extremely difficult to manage the affairs of the Church in the present situation,” the Catholicos noted in the letter.

“My humble self has decided to step down from my duties as Metropolitan Trustee of the Holy Church and to retire from the position as Catholicos of India. I shall continue to serve the Church as the Metropolitan of Angamali Diocese,” the Catholicos said in the letter.