The distance from the sea east across the states midsectiona water world of backwaters merging into the rubber tree-filled farmsto the tea and cardamom plantations of the hills, averages only between 20 and 75 miles. Also seen is the depiction of Mygdonia using the palanquin when going to see the Apostle, which is also specially peculiar to Southern India. Updates? Reverend IGNATIUS PAYYAPPILLY (Director, Catholic Art Museum of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly, India): This is the oldest Syriac manuscript which I have here in these archives. Valuable history to scholars just clutter to most priests in the local churches. The evidence that nailed Sister Abhaya's killers 28 years later St. Thomas, one of the Apostles of Christ, is believed to be the founder of the religion in India in CE 52. Dr J N Farquhar says Thirty years ago the balance of the probability stood absolutely against the story of the Apostolate of Thomas in India: We suggest that today the balance of probability is distinctly on the side of historicity. SUSAN THOMAS (Church Scholar): And most of these palm leaves were, you know, either put in somewhere where you have them exposed to termites and mice, or just put up with the logs and water wells or the waste material. The manuscript told a story that had been forgotten in the traditions of the western Church. Since 1834, coins discovered from the period establish that the King Gondophares did exist and was a contemporary of the Apostle. Thomas did not win any accolades for his lack of faith, but he did redeem himself with adventures that are more historically based than might be expected. It is believed that St Thomas visited Kerala during the 1st century CE, and converted members of Brahmin families to Christianity. And if there is no documentary proof to clinch the case, there is at least a very good reason for its absence: for the entire historical documentation of the St Thomas Christians was reduced to ashes in the 16th century - not by Muslims or Hindus, but by a newly arrived European Christian power: the Portuguese. St. Thomas College Kozhencherry accredited with A++ In the absence of contemporary documents or monuments relating to the first century, it is difficult to substantiate the argument that the Apostle did indeed visit India, and that he preached and was eventually martyred there. 72 CE: Thomas the Apostle is murdered in India - Haaretz There are only very limited details about him in the Bible. In the sixth century, the Byzantine empire was beginning to crumble under a wave of attacks, and the great classical cities of the east Mediterranean were falling into ruin and decay. But through it all the St. Thomas Christians have maintained a distinctly Indian that is non-European character. Kerala BJP leader visits St Thomas's shrine: Who was the apostle and 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. The religious ties between West Asia and South India gave more energy to the trade. Today about seven million people, a fifth of Keralas population, call themselves St. Thomas Christians after Jesus apostle, who many here believe arrived in India in 52 A.D. A big part of our identity as Christians is that St Thomas the disciple went to India. to Kerala, but scholars have argued substantially on the. Rev. There are christian communities in South Western India (Kerala State) which trace back their ancestry to conversions that happened during that time.A substantial part of the Christian community in that Indian state has Syrian . Dr. Bellew recovered a stone scripture, kept in the Lahore Museum, about the Parthian empire ruled by Gondophares. Biblical scholars of the 19th century were at first very sceptical of the Acts of St Thomas. Scholars have presented conflicting viewpoints, each offering differing analyses on whether the Apostle did visit India in the first century. Ancient churches were destroyed, libraries were burned, and clerics from Mesopotamia were intercepted, imprisoned, and executed. Levels of hostility to Christians in India are on the rise, and the belief that St. Thomas was martyred by either a local ruler or a. Though Pantaenus attributes the presence of the Gospel to the Apostle Bartholomew, there are scholars who believe that the difficulty in understanding the language might have caused him to misinterpret the reference to Mar Thoma as Bar Tolmai (the Hebrew name of Bartholomew). Above all, the church here has remained faithful to the tradition of St Thomas's journey from Palestine to India. As the Thomas Christian community grew, its members enjoyed about a millennium of theological and ecclesiastical cohesion and unity. The tradition of St. Thomas There are several other records of the presence of the tomb, one of which was made by certain Nestorian bishops, who wrote in A.D. 1504, to the Catholicus of the East, speak of the houses of St. Thomas in a city by the sea named Meliapur. The Hindu homes welcomed us with lighted candles at their gates. But many outlawed rites survived, as did factions that resisted pledging loyalty to a Syriac patriarch instead of the pope. Protected from their enemies, the monks accumulated one of the greatest treasuries of icons and illuminated manuscripts in the Christian world. If the police wanted to, it could have caught her within hours. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Muziris, roughly identified as present day Kodungallur, was an ancient harbour at the Malabar coast which was key to trade between South India and Persia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the (Greek and Roman) Mediterranean region. Augustus in that city There is no early literary evidence that St Thomas did come. History of Christianity in India: Seven Churches established by St It is said in it that Thomas was able to convert the King Gudnaphar, his brother and many other people. In St. Thomas, they encountered a faith filled man committed to God and willing to serve selflessly and compassionately for the benefit of others. She had 15 days to destroy evidence against her. Department of Tourism, Government of Kerala, Park View, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India - 695 033. In the Acts the General who heard of St. Thomas preaching comes to him in a cart drawn by cattle, which is characteristic of Southern India. 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. In April 1498 two Thomas Christians piloted Vasco da Gamas small fleet from Melinda (East Africa) to Calicut (present-day Kozhikode), an event recorded by two Thomas Christian metrans (Malayam for bishop). Instead we do find some descriptions that points towards the possibility of a South-Indian apostolate of St. Thomas. Reverend COLUMBA STEWART, OSB (St. Johns Abbey, Collegeville, MN, handing over manuscripts): Ethiopian manuscript, Latin manuscript. But looking back, it seems clear that through the vicissitudes of history the community was moving ahead, not stumbling. This agrees well with the period of St. Thomass visit to India. Similarly, St. Thomas is believed to have preached among the Jews in their colonies in Kodungalloor. Modern Syrian Christians of Kerala (themajority Christian population here) believe that the Apostle Thomasthe one who so famously questioned Jesusvisited here in a.d. 52 andbaptized their forefathers. STEWART: By their lights, viewing it through the lens of the 15th- and 16th-century European perspective, these people were heretics. No one was promoting them or rewarding them for their work. Moreover, the majority of the churches set up by St. Thomas were in these settlements. Kindly share the information with us. St Pantaenus is said to have carried the Hebrew Gospel back with him to Alexandria. Migration of Jews: DE SAM LAZARO: But also here, in the subterranean Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, is one of the most extensive records of sacred texts from around the world. The Acts of Thomas identifies his second mission in India with a kingdom ruled by a certain King named Mahadwa belonging to a 1st-century dynasty in southern India. 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. According to a previously overlooked remark by Strabo, first- century geographer and historian, 200 Roman trading vessels a year were making the annual journey to the bazaars of Malabar and back. Omissions? "As a result much must have been lost: not one asan knew the whole of the two longest ballads: some knew 20%; some 70%. It is no exaggeration to say that Europeans started colonization for procuring pepper from Kerala. That the historicity of this advent cannot be verified does not gainsay evidencesuch as extant inscriptions on stone crosses and on copper platesthat Christians have been on the Malabar Coast since the 2nd or 3rd century. Both these ballads predated the coming of the Portuguese and both, from their very archaic language, showed every sign of dating from the earliest centuries AD. Pepper was mainly exported from Muziris. Thomas Christians, also called St. Thomas Christians, Mar Thoma Christians, or Malabar Christians, indigenous Indian Christian groups who have traditionally lived in Kerala, a state on the Malabar Coast, in southwestern India. Even today, parts of some liturgies are sung in Syriac, close to the Aramaic language spoken by Christ. However, The Malabar Manual written by William Logan says that Ophir was near Beypore in Kozhikode. We will verify it and include in the article. Such trade links existed even during the time of the Israeli ruler Solomon (BCE 977- 937) (Majumdar, R.C., The History and Culture of the Indian People, Vol. It is about the second king, Mazdai, that scholars are divided regarding where he reigned was he the King Vasudeva of Mathura or a king from the southern part of India. All rights reserved. Thomas the Apostle - Wikipedia Christianity in Kerala: The Fourth Pilgrim Stays Webinar, Streamed live Saturday, 1 August 2020 on Facebook and You Tube. In the end it is these traditions that we base our belief on: not something on paper or stone which is secondary. PDF Historical Study of The Arrival of Apostle St. Thomas in Kerala and Its Syrian Christians of Kerala And if he didn't make the journey, it seems certain that some other very early Christian missionary did, for there is certainly evidence for a substantial Christian population in India by at least the third century. Christianity in Kerala: A Historical Perspective - Pilgrim Stays Kerala Trending News For while Christianity has never been a major faith in India, it is a religion with deep roots, which has clung on with incredible tenacity, despite all the odds. Of course we had no way of knowing then that the Latin rite had come to Kerala by way of the 16th-century Portuguese or that the Syriac rite had come far earlier, in the centuries just following Christs birth. Fred de Sam Lazaro has a close-up view of all this. It was used with salt for preserving meat for consumption during the four winter months. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. This copy was carried back to Alexandria says St Jerome. It is a story long forgotten in a west which has come to regard itself as the true home of the faith, forgetting that in essence, Christianity is an eastern religion. Rev. Marco Polo has recorded that he visited the tomb of St. Thomas in Mylapore. It, again, tells you something about the religious situation. Though these were only written down much later after their original composition, it is certain that these existed from a very early time period. This trade was carried out from the port of Ophir. The second testimony is by St Jerome of Stridon, who translated the Bible to Latin (known as the Vulgate), made in the late fourth century. But no one was trying to write down what they had preserved. All of it will be digitized rescued from moisture, termites, and neglect and stored here for scholars and for posterity. Annual parish festivals still draw big crowds, many Christians abroad catching a flight back home to attend. Advertisement India Today Web Desk New Delhi, UPDATED: Dec 24, 2020 08:47 IST Sister Abhaya was murdered in 1992 and the case has been going on for 28 years. He was killed while he was carrying out his mission at Mylapore near Madras. Their ancestors, many believe, were converted by the Apostle . The community would be split, re-split, changed, reformedand reinvented. "Whatever I need I pray for and my prayers are heard and answered. As we assembled for the service, holes in the churchs palm-leaf-thatched roof admitted shafts of sunlight that danced upon us children. The copper plates presented by King Bhaskara Ravi Varman I (CE 962-1020) are the oldest documents regarding the Jews of Kerala. "Most of them were illiterate: isolated old men who were only barely aware of the importance of what they were clinging on to. A look into the Judeo-Dravidian origins of the native Malankara Nasrani Christians, otherwise known as St. Thomas Christians of Malabar. Vellian is right. (speaking to Father Ignatius): So, Father Ignatius, this is your oldest Syriac manuscript? PAYYAPILLY: Yes, the king is a Hinduand they have to say special mass, solemn high mass for the longevity of this king. Lawrence stood in front of the makeshift altar, an old wooden desk covered with a torn white sheet, murmuring the prayers. Kerala Local News. In songs and dances passed on from father to son and teacher to pupil, they preserved intact many of their most ancient traditions. Therefore excluding Southern India from the scope of St. Thomass labours and confining him to the north does not seem reasonable. The converted King might have been the Jewish ruler of Kodungalloor. Produced by THIRTEEN 2015 WNET. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine They were concerned that their liturgies and their other writings be purified and corrected on the basis of what a Portuguese Latin-Rite Roman Catholic would expect to be normative. Up from Pala, a very Christian town with afamous temple right behind the bishops mansion, through Erattupetta, a very Muslim town with a celebrated church right in the middle of it, and at the end of a winding road into the hills of Western Ghats, with lovely vistas and many hairpin bends, a visitor reaches the Kurisumala Ashram (monastery), a place of serenity and beauty. These churches of Malabar trace their roots back to St. Thomas the Apostle who according to local tradition arrived along the Malabar Coast in the year A.D. 52. II). Certain Historical Facts When he came to our house for coffee, he lifted the curiously rounded hat and bowed with grave courtesy, a gesture I remember vividly because we did not know of such things then. It is a tradition they go to extraordinary lengths to preserve and to propagate - not least by establishing what is almost certainly Christianity's only troupe of dancing nuns. Imagine his surprise when he found Christians. Kerala Christians boast of a history and culture as old as Christianity. His name itself evokes sentiments of pride and devotion in the minds of the faithful of Kerala who belong to the Churches of Thomas tradition. The Tradition of St. Thomas - Kerala Tourism There are two ancient testimonies about the Bartholomew Apostolate, both of which rely upon the visit to India in 193 AD, of St Pantaenus, the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. The rains come to Kerala for months at a time. The worldwide Kerala Christian diaspora is prosperous and strong. PAYYAPILLY: We are Christians in faith, and we are Indian in citizenship, and we are Hindus in culture. Working in isolation in his spare time, with little help and pitiful resources, Fr Jacob has since 1973 single-handedly travelled from village to village in Kerala systematically collecting Christian songs and dances about St Thomas's travels and exploits in India. All this showed that if St Thomas had wanted to come to India, the passage from Palestine, far from being near-impossible, would in fact have been easier, more frequent and probably cheaper than at anytime in the next 1,500 years - until Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to the Indies in 1498. the legends of st. thomas in kerala - vdocuments.mx STEWART: Those are treasures, because we can find manuscripts that may have disappeared in Middle Eastern libraries, some collections of East Syrian canon law, for example, preserved in unique manuscripts in Kerala, which havent survived because of the later persecution of these Christians in the Middle East in the 19th and 20th centuries. The only surviving copies of many are now in Kerala. Kerala News. Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: India, Modern Syrian Christians of Kerala believe that the Apostle Thomas visited in A.D. 52 to baptize their ancestors, Paul Zacharia; Photographs by Lynn Johnson. Before leaving Kerala, I asked Dr Vellian whether he really believed his work would eventually provide some conclusive evidence to prove St Thomas's journey. That the Church in India was founded by St. Thomas the Apostle is attested by West Asian writings since the 2nd century (the Doctrine of the Apostles and Acta Thomae both of which were written at or near Edessa ca 200-250 AD); St. Ephraim, St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregorios Nazianzen, in the 4th century; St. Jerome, ca 400 AD; and historians . "We have a very ancient, unbroken tradition that St. Thomas was the founder of the church in India. It was the Greeks and Romans who popularized the use of pepper in Europe. And the churches have been in the forefront of institution-building and in that sense a modernizing partner of Kerala society. After taking into account all the evidence that is there, it can be said with certainty that there is nothing impossible or improbable about St. Thomas travelling to India, specifically the southern part of the country. AT THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH. Church sources say there is scholarly debate on the evidence on whether St Thomas came to India and Kerala. The three occasions are the resurrection of Lazar, the Last Supper, and the resurrection of Christ. Caste system and Christianity: Kerala bishop's comments on casteism Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Sometimes they burn it up. Nilakkal St. Thomas Ecumenical Church is one of the earliest Christian church in Kerala, India. The traditional-minded in our parish frowned upon this because the plantation church followed the Latin rite, not the Syrian rite, although both are Catholic. Few are memorable or enriching, however, unless you like milling crowds and scary fireworks. Theres an assumption that there were no Christians in India until the Western missionaries brought the Gospel to this land of pagans, and thats not the truth at all. But subsequently, while King Mazdai was still living, the bones of the Apostle were secretly removed by one of the brethren and were taken away to the West. The apocryphal Acts of St Thomas say that Thomas went to 'another kingdom' after his. He left a few behind, who introduced the Latinread Roman Catholicrite. There is also speculation that St Thomas visited Taxila in North India before he embarked to India. The remains were taken to Italy along with the mortal remains of martyrs from the Middle East, during the holy war. Harnack, a prominent church historian, has assigned to it a date before A.D. 220. The discovery of what is known as the Takht-i-Bahi inscription (in 1857) has helped to date the reign of Guduphara/Gondophernes in A.D. 20 or 21, and in establishing the fact that in A.D. 46 his dominions included, in India itself, at any rate the territory round about Peshawar. Hence the importance of the fact that some of the St Thomas Christian churches to this day retain Judeo-Christian practices long dropped in the west - such as the celebration of the solemn Passover feast. In Kerala, St Thomas was said to have converted the local Brahmins with the aid of miracles and to have built seven churches. Arabs' monopoly over the trade came to an end with Hippalus, a Greek mariner, detecting the course of the south-western wind on a sea route, which was kept a secret by the Arabs.
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