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Terminology. The Saint Thomas Christians have also been nicknamed such due to their reverence for Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is said to have brought Christianity to India. The name dates back to the period of Portuguese colonisation. They are also known, especially locally, as Nasrani or Nasrani Mappila.
- Overview
- The Thomas tradition
- Early Christian migrants
- Relations with Rome and schism
Thomas Christians, indigenous Indian Christian groups who have traditionally lived in Kerala, a state on the Malabar Coast, in southwestern India. Claiming to have been evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle, Thomas Christians ecclesiastically, liturgically, and linguistically represent one of the oldest Christian traditions in the world, particular...
By ancient belief and canonical doctrine, Thomas Christians trace their origins to the arrival of St. Thomas at Malankara, on a lagoon near present-day Kodungallur (Cranganore; near ancient Muziris) in 52 ce and to congregations he established in seven villages. That the historicity of this advent cannot be verified does not gainsay evidence—such a...
Among waves of Christian refugees who later settled on the Malabar Coast was a community of 400 Syriac-speaking Jewish-Christian families from Uruhu, near Babylon. That community—traditionally said to have been led by Thomas Kināyi (also called Thomas of Cana), a merchant-warrior; Uruhu Mar Yusuf, a bishop; and four pastors—settled on the south bank of the Periyar River. That arrival of the Malankara Nazarani, as they are referred to in Malayalam (Nazarani is derived from a Syriac term for Nazarene, indicating a Christian), in the 4th century is celebrated in their epics, such as the Muraroruvant Kalpanayala and the Nallororsilam and in the song “Kottayam Valiyapally.” The exclusive “Southists” (Tekkumbhagar), as distinct from the older “Northists” (Vatakkumbhagar), blended Christian faith and Hindu culture with Syriac doctrine, ecclesiology, and ritual. The local social status of the Southists paralleled that of elite Brahman and Nayar castes in Kerala. Other Christian refugees, fleeing Islamic oppression in Arab and Persian lands, came to Kerala beginning in the 7th and 8th centuries.
India’s ancient Christians looked to the Assyrian Church of the East (often disparaged as “Nestorian” by Western or Roman Catholic Christians, who associated it with the anathematized bishop Nestorius) and its catholicos (or patriarch) for ecclesiastical authority and to centres of learning in Edessa and Nisibis for instruction.
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As the Thomas Christian community grew, its members enjoyed about a millennium of theological and ecclesiastical cohesion and unity. That state of affairs changed after the Portuguese arrival. In April 1498 two Thomas Christians piloted Vasco da Gama’s small fleet from Melinda (East Africa) to Calicut (present-day Kozhikode), an event recorded by two Thomas Christian metrans (Malayam for “bishop”). Half a century later two more Thomas Christians made it possible for the Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier to bring shoreline fisherfolk, the Paravars and Mukkavars, into the Roman Catholic fold. Nevertheless, harmonious relations with the Catholics did not last. After 1561, Thomas Christians were branded heretics by the Goa Inquisition, which had been established under Portuguese rule. The 1599 Synod of Diamper (Udayamperoor) anathematized the catholicos of Chaldea and all Christians of India who did not submit to Rome. Ancient churches were destroyed, libraries were burned, and clerics from Mesopotamia were intercepted, imprisoned, and executed.
Yet, eventually, ancient skills of silent resistance and subversion wore out one prelate after another. In 1653 anti-Catholic kattanars met at Koonen (“Crooked”) Cross, a granite monument at Mattancheri. There they swore an oath to never again accept another farangi (European) prelate and installed their own high metran (patriarch). Archdeacon (Ramban) Parambil Tumi became their first indigenous prelate, taking the title Mar Thoma I (Mar is a Syriac term meaning “Saint”). A schism occurred, with some Thomas Christian clergy remaining Roman Catholic while others divided between East Syrian (more closely affiliated with the Assyrian Church of the East) and West Syrian (called Jacoba, after the evangelist Jacob Baradaeus) authority. The unity that Thomas Christians had enjoyed for a thousand years ended in the proliferation of ever more denominations.
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- Robert Eric Frykenberg
The Saint Thomas Christians are a group of Christians from the Malabar coast (now Kerala) in South India, who follow Syriac Christianity. The different groups and denominations within the St Thomas Christians together form the Nasrani people.
Feb 19, 2016 · Thomas Christians hold that the Apostle Thomas landed on India’s Malabar Coast then went on to establish one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
May 18, 2018 · Eight days after Jesus met his disciples following the Resurrection, he encountered St. Thomas. Since then, St. Thomas the Apostle has been better known as Doubting Thomas.
Although little is certain about his life, Christian tradition holds that St. Thomas was the first missionary to India. He is recognized as the founder of the Church of the Syrian Malabar Christians, or Thomas Christians.
Feb 24, 2023 · One group in the South Asian country of India is known as the St. Thomas Christians. Other names for this group include the Syrian Christians of India, Mar Thoma Christians, and Malabar...
