The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani, Malankara Nasrani, or Nasrani Mappila, are an Indo-Aryanethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Kerala, who, for the most part, employ the Eastern and Western liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity. They trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. The Saint Thomas Christians had been historically a part of the hierarchy of the Church of the East but are now divided into several different Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and independent bodies, each with their own liturgies and traditions. They are Keralites and speak Malayalam. Nasrani or Nazarene is a Syriac term for Christians, who were among the first converts to Christianity in the Near East.
The K'nānāya, also known as the Southists or Tekkumbhagar, are an endogamous ethnic group found among the Saint Thomas Christian community of Kerala, India. They are differentiated from another part of the community, known in this context as the Northists (Vaddakkumbhagar). There are about 300,000 Knanaya in India and elsewhere.
The Coonan Cross Oath, also known as the Great Oath of Bent Cross, the Leaning Cross Oath or the Oath of the Slanting Cross, taken on 3 January 1653 in Mattancherry, was a public avowal by members of the Saint Thomas Christians of the Malabar region in India, that they would not submit to the Jesuits and Latin Catholic hierarchy, nor accept Portuguese dominance in ecclesiastical and secular life.
The Chaldean Syrian Church of India is an Eastern Christian denomination, based in Thrissur, in India. It is organized as a metropolitan province of the Assyrian Church of the East, and represents traditional Christian communities of the East Syriac Rite along the Malabar Coast of India. It is headed by Mar Awgin Kuriakose.
The Malabar Independent Syrian Church (MISC) also known as the Thozhiyur Church, is a Christian church centred in Kerala, India. It is one of the churches of the Saint Thomas Christian community, which traces its origins to the evangelical activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.
Mar Thoma I, also known as Valiya Mar Thoma and Arkkadiyakkon Thoma in Malayalam and Thomas de Campo in Portuguese was the first native-born, popularly-selected Metropolitan bishop of the 17th-century Malankara Church. He was the last Archdeacon of the undivided St. Thomas Christians of Malankara (Maliyankara).
Thomas of Cana was a Syrian Christian merchant magnate who arrived to the Chera Dynasties capital city of Kodungallur between 345 C.E. and 811 C.E. Thoma brought with him Jewish-Christian families and clergymen from Persian Mesopotamia.
The history of the Church of the East in India is dated to 52 AD by apocryphal sources and to the 9th century by the Quilon Syrian copper plates, the latter of which is considered the earliest reputable dating for Christians in the Indian subcontinent.
The Malankara Church, also known as Puthenkur, is the historic unified body of West Syriac Saint Thomas Christian denominations which claim ultimate origins from the missions of Thomas the Apostle. This community, under the leadership of Thoma I, opposed the Padroado Jesuits as well as the Propaganda Carmelites of the Latin Church, following the historical Coonan Cross Oath of 1653. The Malankara Church's divisions and branchings have resulted in present-day Churches that include the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the Saint Thomas Anglicans of the Church of South India and the St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India.
Dioceses of the Church of the East after 1552 were dioceses of the Church of the East and its subsequent branches, both traditionalist and pro-Catholic.
The patriarch of the Church of the East is the patriarch, or leader and head bishop of the Church of the East. The position dates to the early centuries of Christianity within the Sassanid Empire, and the Church has been known by a variety of names, including the Church of the East, Nestorian Church, the Persian Church, the Sassanid Church, or East Syrian.
Ahatallah was a Syrian bishop chiefly known for his trip to India in 1652. His mysterious appearance in, and disappearance from Portuguese India caused a great uproar there, and resulted directly in a revolt by the Saint Thomas Christians against Portuguese rule and the establishment of an independent Malankara Church.
Metropolitanate of India was an East Syriac ecclesiastical province of the Church of the East, at least nominally, from the seventh to the sixteenth century. The Malabar region (Kerala) of India had long been home to a thriving Eastern Christian community, known as the Saint Thomas Christians. The community traces its origins to the evangelical activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. The Christian communities in India used the East Syriac Rite, the traditional liturgical rite of the Church of the East. They also adopted some aspects of Dyophysitism of Theodore of Mopsuestia, often inaccurately referred as Nestorianism, in accordance with theology of the Church of the East. It is unclear when the relation between Saint Thomas Christian and the Church of the East was established. Initially, they belonged to the metropolitan province of Fars, but were detached from that province in the 7th century, and again in the 8th, and given their own metropolitan bishop.
The Saint Thomas Christian denominations are Christian denominations from Kerala, India, which traditionally trace their ultimate origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. They are also known as "Nasranis" as well. The Syriac term "Nasrani" is still used by St. Thomas Christians in Kerala. It is part of the Eastern Christianity institution.
Mar Abraham, also known as Abraham of Angamaly or Abraham of Gazira, was the last East Syrian bishop of the See of Angamaly, who entered into communion with Rome in 1565 and who was the last link in Angamaly from the long line of the bishops from the East Syriac bishops sent from the Church of the East to the Saint Thomas Christians. He first came to India in 1556 from the traditionalist patriarchate. Deposed from his position in 1558, he was taken to Lisbon by the Portuguese, escaped at Mozambique and left for his mother church in Mesopotamia, entered into communion with the Chaldean patriarchate and Rome in 1565, received his episcopal ordination from the Latin patriarch of Venice as arranged by Pope Pius IV (1559–65) in Rome. Subsequently, Abraham was appointed by Pope as Archbishop of Angamaly.
Mar Yohannan, also known as a monk Yoseph of Awgin, was Bishop of India, a metropolitan province of the Church of the East. In 1490, envoys of Saint Thomas Christians from the Malabar Coast in India traveled to Mesopotamia and arrived in Gazarta, bringing appeals to the hierarchy of the Church of the East, and asking for new bishops. Patriarch Shemon IV responded positively to their request and arranged the selection of two monks from the Awgin Monastery, both of them called Yoseph, appointing them as bishops, under new names: Mar Yohannan and Mar Thoma, and dispatching them to India. Mar Yohannan stayed in India, while Mar Thomas returned to Mesopotamia. In 1503, three new bishops were sent to India, by new Patriarch Eliya V: Mar Yahballaha, Mar Dinkha and Mar Yaqob. Upon arrival, they met with Mar Yohannan. Activities of Mar Yohannan and other bishops reaffirmed traditional ties between Christians of India and the Church of the East. By that time, local Christians of the Malabar Coast were also facing some additional challenges, caused by the establishment of Portuguese presence in India.
Several historical evidences shed light on a significant Malankara–Persian ecclesiastical relationship that spanned centuries. While an ecclesiastical relationship existed between the Saint Thomas Christians of India and the Church in Sassanid Empire in the earlier centuries, closer ecclesiastical ties developed as early as seventh century, when India became an ecclesiastical province of the Church of the East, albeit restricted to matters of purely ecclesiastical nature such as ordination of priests, and not involved in matters of temporal administration. This relationship endured until the Portuguese protectorate of Cochin of Malabar came to be in 16th century, and the Portuguese discovery of a sea route to India. The Christians who came under the two ancient yet distinct lineages of Malankara and Persia had one factor in common: their Saint Thomas heritage. The Church of the East shared communion with the Great Church until the Council of Ephesus in the 5th century, separating primarily over differences in Christology.
Mar Elīyā V was the patriarch of the Church of the East from September 1502 until his death in 1504.
Eliya X was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 1700 to 1722, with residence in Rabban Hormizd Monastery, near Alqosh, in modern Iraq. During his tenure, traditional ties of the Patriarchate with the remaining Christian community of the East Syriac Rite in India were re-established, and in 1708 bishop Mar Gabriel was sent there by the Patriarch, succeeding upon arrival to the Malabar Coast to revive the local East Syriac Christian community.
Jacob Pakalomattam was an Archdeacon of the Saint Thomas Christian community in India in the years preceding the Synod of Diamper in 1599. He was a native of Muttuchira and belonged to the Pakalomattam dynastic family. His activities were based in the Church of Ruha d'Qudisha in Muttuchira. He owed his staunch allegiance to the traditionalist Eliah Patriarchate of the Church of the East and Metropolitan Mar Shemon, who was sent to India by Patriarch Eliya VI Barmama. He protested against the Latinising attempts of the Portuguese Padroado and resisted the Chaldean Catholic attempts of reconciliation led by Joseph Sulaqa and Abraham of Angamaly. Throughout his archdeaconate, he is known to have rebelled against the Chaldean Catholic archdeacons including Givargis of Cross.
