Very few regions in the world have provided Christianity as much freedom to tell its story and propagate itself as India, and in no other country has Christianity tried to spread its message so hard and for so long—for nearly 2,000 years to be specific—which is about half as long as Indian civilization itself. They are the St.Thomas Christians.
Source - Muziris - Wikipedia
Thomas Didaemus is believed to have visited India in two phases. His first mission took him to the Parthian empire in the Indo-Scythian border province of Kandahar (now in Afghanistan). Christians believed that king Gundapar who ruled in India, allowed Thomas to preach the gospel in his kingdom.
For 10 centuries, the existence of such a king was doubted. However, a large number of coins discovered in Kabul, Kandahar, and in the Punjab, bear the name of Gondophores. Research indicates that Gondophores probably ruled Peshawar between 20 and 45 A.D. However, there is no further evidence whether the first Christians were converted here or not.
At Palayur, he organized the new coverts and appointed priests from among the leading families. Alongside he organised the erection of the first church in India at Palayur, now in Trichur district. He established 7 and a half churches, known as ezharapalli in Malayalam.
St. Thomas then moved on to the east coast of India making conversions and crossed over to China. Returning to India he shifted base to Madras (now Chennai). But the people here did not appreciate the new religion and he was persecuted and killed in a cave in what is now called the St Thomas’ Mount in 72 A.D.
To know more visit the site of Muziris project [Discover the history of Muziris]
SAINT THOMAS CHRISTIANS
They follow a unique Hebrew-Syriac Christian tradition which includes several Jewish elements along with some Hindu customs. Their have a Syriac-Keralite heritage, their culture South Indian, their faith, St. Thomas Christian, and their language, Malayalam.
The peculiarity of this community is that they neither let go of their Indian roots nor shunned the external Syrian influences. Over the centuries, a unique culture was formed which was strongly Indian yet strangely foreign. The names of Syrian Christians are interesting too, as most of the times they include Hindu names and are not fully westernised eg: Arun Kurian, Vivek Paul, Georgekutty Cherian, Kunjumon Thomas, etc.
Members of the Syro-Malabar Church, an eastern rite of the Catholic Church, adopted the Syriac liturgy dating from an unknown period before the fourth Century. In the fourth century, at the instance of Bishop of Edessa of the Kerala Church, removed Apostle’s relics to Edessa, later moving them to Italy.
Coonan Cross Oath
When the Portuguese arrived in India, they were surprised to find a Christian community already thriving in such a distant part of the world where other religions were more common. The colonialist were Catholics (who had full communion with the Church at Rome and accepted the Pope as their leader) and followed the Latin rite, as opposed to the Syrian rite of the Nasranis who did not accept the hegemony of Rome but instead followed the Patriarch of Antioch. The Portuguese decreed the Nasrani community to be heretics and declared their beliefs and rituals to be blasphemous and non-Christian.
After one such incident where a priest was exiled, the Nasranis decided they finally had enough of colonial bullying and vowed to stand up against the violations inflicted on their faith. This came through at the very famous Coonan Cross Oath, in which each Nasrani touched the Cross at Mattancherry and vowed to protect his/her faith against the Portuguese attempts to destroy their culture and beliefs. A rope was tied to the Cross and then passed around for the people to hold. As the force pulling the rope was too great, the cross got bent which is how it got its name (Coonan means bent in Malayalam).
Courtesy Manu-Madhavan answer to Why are there so many Christians in Kerala?
Saint Thomas Christian Churches - Wikipedia
Margam kali, a group dance of Kerala practiced by Syrian Christians
The oldest church in India is St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Palayur located at Palayur (also spelt Palayoor), in Thrissur district in Kerala on the west coast of India. According to tradition, it was established in 52 AD by St Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ.
Interior of ‘St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Palayur’
St. Thomas Christians (52-1498)
[Before Vasco da Gama and Europeans]
Ancient Era (52-431)
Saint Thomas Christians - Wikipedia
Timeline of Oriental Orthodoxy in India (St. Thomas Christianity)
How did Christianity Come to India?
St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Palayoor - Wikipedia
Source - Muziris - Wikipedia
Thomas Didaemus is believed to have visited India in two phases. His first mission took him to the Parthian empire in the Indo-Scythian border province of Kandahar (now in Afghanistan). Christians believed that king Gundapar who ruled in India, allowed Thomas to preach the gospel in his kingdom.
For 10 centuries, the existence of such a king was doubted. However, a large number of coins discovered in Kabul, Kandahar, and in the Punjab, bear the name of Gondophores. Research indicates that Gondophores probably ruled Peshawar between 20 and 45 A.D. However, there is no further evidence whether the first Christians were converted here or not.
- His second visit was to Kerala.
At Palayur, he organized the new coverts and appointed priests from among the leading families. Alongside he organised the erection of the first church in India at Palayur, now in Trichur district. He established 7 and a half churches, known as ezharapalli in Malayalam.
St. Thomas then moved on to the east coast of India making conversions and crossed over to China. Returning to India he shifted base to Madras (now Chennai). But the people here did not appreciate the new religion and he was persecuted and killed in a cave in what is now called the St Thomas’ Mount in 72 A.D.
To know more visit the site of Muziris project [Discover the history of Muziris]
SAINT THOMAS CHRISTIANS
They follow a unique Hebrew-Syriac Christian tradition which includes several Jewish elements along with some Hindu customs. Their have a Syriac-Keralite heritage, their culture South Indian, their faith, St. Thomas Christian, and their language, Malayalam.
The peculiarity of this community is that they neither let go of their Indian roots nor shunned the external Syrian influences. Over the centuries, a unique culture was formed which was strongly Indian yet strangely foreign. The names of Syrian Christians are interesting too, as most of the times they include Hindu names and are not fully westernised eg: Arun Kurian, Vivek Paul, Georgekutty Cherian, Kunjumon Thomas, etc.
Members of the Syro-Malabar Church, an eastern rite of the Catholic Church, adopted the Syriac liturgy dating from an unknown period before the fourth Century. In the fourth century, at the instance of Bishop of Edessa of the Kerala Church, removed Apostle’s relics to Edessa, later moving them to Italy.
Coonan Cross Oath
When the Portuguese arrived in India, they were surprised to find a Christian community already thriving in such a distant part of the world where other religions were more common. The colonialist were Catholics (who had full communion with the Church at Rome and accepted the Pope as their leader) and followed the Latin rite, as opposed to the Syrian rite of the Nasranis who did not accept the hegemony of Rome but instead followed the Patriarch of Antioch. The Portuguese decreed the Nasrani community to be heretics and declared their beliefs and rituals to be blasphemous and non-Christian.
After one such incident where a priest was exiled, the Nasranis decided they finally had enough of colonial bullying and vowed to stand up against the violations inflicted on their faith. This came through at the very famous Coonan Cross Oath, in which each Nasrani touched the Cross at Mattancherry and vowed to protect his/her faith against the Portuguese attempts to destroy their culture and beliefs. A rope was tied to the Cross and then passed around for the people to hold. As the force pulling the rope was too great, the cross got bent which is how it got its name (Coonan means bent in Malayalam).
Courtesy Manu-Madhavan answer to Why are there so many Christians in Kerala?
Saint Thomas Christian Churches - Wikipedia
Margam kali, a group dance of Kerala practiced by Syrian Christians
The oldest church in India is St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Palayur located at Palayur (also spelt Palayoor), in Thrissur district in Kerala on the west coast of India. According to tradition, it was established in 52 AD by St Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ.
Interior of ‘St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Palayur’
St. Thomas Christians (52-1498)
[Before Vasco da Gama and Europeans]
Ancient Era (52-431)
- 40 Apostle Thomas is brought before King Gondophares, in Takshasila in North India (Pakistan).[note 3]
- 52 Arrival of St. Thomas the Apostle in Muziris (near Kodungalloor)[note 4] in the Indian state of Kerala, founding the Church in India.
- 52-72 St. Thomas converted and baptized many caste Hindus including thirty-two Namboori (Brahmin) families and certain members of the royal family, Namely, Bana Varma Perumal and his nephew who later became Kepa, the first Archbishop of Kerala; St Thomas established 7 churches at: Kodungalloor; Palayoor; Paravur; Kokkamangalam; Chayal; Niranam; and Kollam.[note 5]
- 72 Martyrdom of St. Thomas the Apostle, in the neighborhood of Mylapore, city of Chennai, state of Tamil Nadu.[note 6]
- 105 Church established at Kuravilangad (St. Mary’s Forane Church).
- 189 Arrival of Stoic Philosopher Pantaenus from Alexandria, who visited the Malankara Church[note 7] at the request of the Malankara Christians (reported by Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome);[note 8] according to Eusebius, Pantaenus was for a time a missionary preacher, traveling as far as India, where it was reported that he found Christians who were using the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew.
- 196 Bardaisan writes of Christians amongst the Parthians, Bactrians (Kushans) and other peoples in the Persian Empire .
- 230 Veera Raghava Chakravarthy, the King Emperor of Kerala, who had his capital at Kodungallor, granted to the Nazaranis a series of royal honors, by a proclamation engraved on copper plate called "cheped."
- 290 Brief persecution of Persian Christians under Bahram II.
- ca.300 Bp. David of Basra undertook missionary work in India, among the earliest documented Christian missionaries in India.[note 9]
- 325 First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea; St. Jacob of Nisibis, Bp. of Nisibis in Mesopotamia and spiritual father of Ephrem the Syrian, attended the First Ecumenical Council, as did Persian Bp. John (Mar Yohannan) presiding over the churches "in Persia and India".[note 10]
- 327 Apparition of Theotokos at Kuravilangad.
- ca.4th-6th c. Severe persecution of Christians in Persia (Sassanid Empire).
- 337-379 The Persian Church faced several severe persecutions, notably during the reign of Shapur II (309–79), from the Zoroastrian majority who accused it of Roman leanings.[note 11]
- 340-360 The Nasranis were granted special rights and privileges by the edict Thazhekad Sasanam; the edict was written on stone and provides proof of the early existence of St. Thomas Christians in Kerala.
- 345 A small group of K'nanaim merchants travelled to the Jewish trade posts at Kodungallur in Kerala and settled there; their descendants are today known in Kerala as Knanaya Nasranis (Saint Thomas Christians); they were under the leadership of Thomas of Cana (Thomas of Kynai), with Bishop Joseph of Edessa (Bp. Uraha Mar Yausef), four priests, several deacons, and 72 Syro-Aramaic Jewish families who migrated from Edessa (about 400 people).
- 354 Theophilos the Indian was sent by Emperor Constantius II on a mission to south Asia via Arabia, where he is said to have converted the Himyarites and built three churches in southwest Arabia; he is also said to have found Christians in India, along the Malabar Coast, as recorded by the Anomoean (Arian) Church historian Philostorgius.
- 363 St. Ephrem the Syrian at Edessa, writes about St. Thomas as the Apostle of India.
- 379-402 Continuation of the Great Persecution of the Persian church.
- 380 St. Gregory the Theologian writes about St. Thomas as the Apostle of India.
- 390 St. Ambrose of Milan writes about St. Thomas as the Apostle of India.
- 400 St. Jerome writes about St. Thomas as the Apostle of India.
- 409 Permission was formally given by the Zoroastrian King Yezdegerd to Christians to worship openly and rebuild destroyed churches, though they were not allowed to proselytize (some historians call this decree the Edict of Milan for the Assyrian Christian church).
- 410 The Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, also called the Council of Mar Isaac, met in AD 410 in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, capitol of the Sassanid Empire of Persia, extending official recognition to the Empire's Christian community, (known as the Church of the East after 431 AD), and established the Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon as its Catholicos, or leader, declaring him to be supreme among the Bishops of the East; this established a hierarchical Christian Church in Iran, with a patriarchate at Ctesiphon and metropolitans in the capitals of five Persian provinces; it also declared its adherence to the decisions of the Council of Nicea and subscribed to the Nicene Creed.
- 424 Schism begun: Formal separation of the Assyrian Church of the East ("East Syrian Church", "Persian Church", "Chaldean Syrian Church", or "Nestorian Church"), from the See of Antioch: the Synod of Dadyeshu met in Markabata of the Arabs, under the presidency of Mar Dadyeshu, proclaiming the independence of the Iranian Church from Byzantium, deciding that the Catholicos should be the sole head of the Church of the East and that no ecclesiastical authority should be acknowledged above him, referring to him for the first time as Patriarch, answerable to God alone (thus also reassuring the Sassandid monarchy that Persian Christians were not influenced by the Roman enemy).
Saint Thomas Christians - Wikipedia
Timeline of Oriental Orthodoxy in India (St. Thomas Christianity)
How did Christianity Come to India?
St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Palayoor - Wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment