Saint Thomas Christians
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The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, Nasrani, Malabar Nasrani, Malankara Nasrani or Nasrani Mappila, are a very old community in Kerala, India. They are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians and follow the East Syriac Rite, the West Syriac Rite and the liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity. They trace their origins to the evangelistic or missionariy activity of Saint Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.
The Saint Thomas Christians are now divided into different churches like the Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant and independent bodies, each with its own liturgies and traditions. They are Malayali people and speak Malayalam, the language of Kerala, but they use Syriac as the language for their prayers.
The Saint Thomas Christians are a community with different ethnicities or origins. Their culture is largely from East Syriac Rite, West Syriac Rite, Latin Rite, Hindu and Jewish influences that are blended with local customs and later elements derived from indigenous Indian and European colonial contacts.
Names
[change | change source]The Saint Thomas Christians received that nickname during Portuguese colonisation because of their reverence for Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is said to have brought Christianity to India. Mappila is an honorific that is applied to members of non-Indian faiths and descendants of immigrants from the Middle East who intermarried with the local population, including Muslims (Jonaka Mappila) and Jews (Yuda Mappila). Some Syrian Christians of Travancore still attach that honorific title to their names.
The Government of India designates members of the community as Syrian Christians, a term originating with the Dutch colonial authorities to distinguish the Saint Thomas Christians, who use Syriac (of the East Syriac or the West Syriac Rites) as their liturgical language, from the newly-evangelised Christians, who followed the Roman Rite.The terms "Syrian" and "Syriac" relate not to their ethnicity but to tgeir historical, religious and liturgical connections to the Church of the East, or the East Syriac Church.
History
[change | change source]According to tradition, Saint Thomas the Apostle came to Muziris, on the coast of Kerala, in AD 52 and converted many Nambudiri Brahmins to Christianity and established the Ezharapallikal, the seven major churches. The most prominent families are the Pakalomattam, Sankarapuri, Kalli, Kalliyankal, Nedumpally, Kunnappilly, Payyippilly, Vazhappilly, Maliekkal, Panakkamattom and Thayil.
The Cochin Jews are known to have existed in Kerala in the 1st century AD, and it was possible for an Aramaic-speaking Jew, such as Thomas, who was from Galilee, to travel to Kerala. The earliest known source connecting the Apostle to India is the Acts of Thomas, likely written in the early 3rd century, perhaps in Edessa. A number of 3rd- and 4th-century Roman writers also mention Thomas' trip to India, including Ambrose of Milan, Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome of Stridon and Ephrem the Syrian. Also, Eusebius of Caesarea records that Saint Clement of Alexandria's teacher Pantaenus came from Alexandria and visited a Christian community in India by using a Hebrerw version of the Gospel of Matthew in the 2nd century.
The traditional origin of the Christians in Kerala is found in a version of the Songs of Thomas, or Thomma Parvam, written in 1601 and believed to be a summary of a larger and older work. Thomas is described as arriving in or around the village of Maliankara and founding seven churches, the Ezharapallikal: Kodungallur, Kollam, Niranam, Nilackal (Chayal), Gokkamangalam, Kottakkavu, Palayoor and Thiruvithamcode Arappally (a "half church"). The Thomma Parvam also mentions the conversion of Jews, natives, and the local King at Kodungallur by Thomas. The Thomma Parvam tells of Thomas's mission in the rest of South India and of his martyrdom at Mylapore, in what is now Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
There is evidence that Saint Thomas Christians observed Brahmin customs in the Middle Ages, such as the wearing of the sacred thread and having a kudumi, a tuft of hair kept at the back of the head. The historian Pius Malekandathil believes that they customs adopted and privileges won during the beginning of the Brahmin dominance of medieval Kerala. He argues that the Syrian Christians in Kerala integrated with Persian Christian migrant merchants in the 9th century to become a powerful trading community. He believes that they were granted those privileges by the local rulers to promote revenue generation and to undermine Buddhist and Jain traders, who then rivaled the Brahmins for religious and political hegemony in Kerala.