Kochi: Patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church and All the East Mar Ignatius Aprem II will visit Kerala to attend the memorial celebrations of Patriarch Elias III at Manjanikkara. Putting controversies on the visit to rest, the episcopal synod of the Malankara Jacobite Church on Sunday unanimously decided to invite the Patriarch of Antioch for the festivities.

A team of bishops, led by Synod secretary Joseph Mar Gregorios, will soon leave for the Church headquarters in Lebanon to communicate the decision and to finalise the details of the visit. This will be his first visit after assuming charge as the global head of the church in April this year.

A controversy erupted after the Patriarch, who was scheduled to visit Kerala, postponed it after he received a letter from Catholicos Baselios Thomas, the local head of the church, to do so.

He, however, sought an explanation from the Catholicos why he raised the demand. While a section of the bishops sided with the Catholicos, the others wanted the Patriarch to go ahead with the visit. Senior metropolitan Yuhanon Mar Philaxinos had written to the parishes, expressing his anguish at the Catholicos’s demand.

The schism in the church had come to the fore when the Patriarch kept the transfer of some bishops by the Catholicos in abeyance, pending the decision by the synod.