Saint Thomas Christians
An archdeacon was the “prince and head of the Christians of Saint Thomas” and had such titles as “Archdeacon and Gate of All India, Governor of India.” Portuguese colonists stopped this practice among the Catholic Syrian Christians and Pulikkottil Mar Dionysias stopped this amongst the Orthodox Syrian Christians in 1816.
According to the traditional structure, the Indian diocese of the Church of the East was governed by a metropolitan sent by the Catholicos Patriarch, from Seleucia-Ctesiphon. At the same time, on the local level, in India, church affairs were governed by the Malabar Assembly. There was also an indigenous head of the Church of Malabar, which, according to historians, means the “head of the caste”, that is the head of the St Thomas Christians but also the “Archdeacon of All India”. Apparently, in his person an indigenous function, characteristic of the St Thomas Christian community, was combined with an existing function of the Church of the East. Patriach Timothy (780–826) of Persia called him the head of the faithful in India.
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