Antioch decides.
The ordination oath binds clergy to the Patriarch of Antioch, and the Catholicos in India holds office under him rather than independently of him. This is precisely the point on which the two Malankara churches divide, and neither side treats it as a technicality: for one it is the guarantee of apostolic continuity, for the other it is foreign control of an Indian church.
The oath of obedience to the patriarch is what makes a Jacobite parish Jacobite; it is administered at ordination and it is what the Orthodox side describes as the surrender of an autocephalous Indian church. The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus is the ultimate authority in doctrine and in the appointment of the Catholicos, and Indian bishops travel to Lebanon or Syria for consecration. Defenders point out that the church's liturgy, chant and canon law come from the same source and that severing the tie would be an act of invention, not restoration. The dispute is genuinely about ecclesiology rather than about property, though property is where it is fought.
The same ground, other faiths
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