Dioceses of Saint Thomas of Mylapore - Acts of Thomas

The Acts of Thomas connects Thomas, the apostle's Indian ministry with two kings, one in the north and the other in the south. According to one of the legends in the Acts, Thomas was at first reluctant to accept this mission, but the Lord appeared to him in a night vision and said, “Fear not, Thomas. Go away to India and proclaim the Word, for my grace shall be with you. ”But the Apostle still demurred, so the Lord overruled the stubborn disciple by ordering circumstances so compelling that he was forced to accompany an Indian merchant, Abbanes, to his native place in northwest India, where he found himself in the service of the Indo-Parthian king, Gondophares. The apostle's ministry resulted in many conversions throughout the kingdom, including the king and his brother.. The Acts of Thomas clearly states Saint Thomas was martyred in the Persian Gulf at Calamina where Greeko-Persian names were common.

Critical historians treated this legend as an idle tale and denied the historicity of King Gundaphorus until modern archeology established him as an important figure in North India in the latter half of the 1st century. Many coins of his reign have turned up in Afghanistan, the Punjab, and the Indus Valley. Remains of some of his buildings, influenced by Greek architecture, indicate that he was a great builder. Interestingly enough, according to the legend, Thomas was a skilled carpenter and was bidden to build a palace for the king. However, the Apostle decided to teach the king a lesson by devoting the royal grant to acts of charity and thereby laying up treasure for the heavenly abode. Although little is known of the immediate growth of the church, Bar-Daisan (154–223) reports that in his time there were Christian tribes in North India which claimed to have been converted by Thomas and to have books and relics to prove it. But at least by the year of the establishment of the Second Persian Empire (226), there were bishops of the Church of the East in northwest India, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, with laymen and clergy alike engaging in missionary activity.

The Acts of Thomas identifies his second mission in India with a kingdom ruled by King Mahadeva, one of the rulers of a 1st-century dynasty in southern India. It is most significant that, aside from a small remnant of the Church of the East in Kurdistan, the only other church to maintain a distinctive identity is the Mar Thoma or “Church of Thomas” congregations along the Malabar Coast of Kerala State in southwest India. According to the most ancient tradition of this church, Thomas evangelized this area and then crossed to the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, where, after carrying out a second mission, he died in Mylapore near Madras. Throughout the period under review, the church in India was under the jurisdiction of Edessa, which was then under the Mesopotamian patriarchate at Seleucia-Ctesiphon and later at Baghdad and Mosul. Historian Vincent A. Smith says, “It must be admitted that a personal visit of the Apostle Thomas to South India was easily feasible in the traditional belief that he came by way of Socotra, where an ancient Christian settlement undoubtedly existed. I am now satisfied that the Christian church of South India is extremely ancient... ”.

Although there was a lively trade between the Near East and India via Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf, the most direct route to India in the 1st century was via Alexandria and the Red Sea, taking advantage of the Monsoon winds, which could carry ships directly to and from the Malabar coast. The discovery of large hoards of Roman coins of 1st-century Caesars and the remains of Roman trading posts testify to the frequency of that trade. In addition, thriving Jewish colonies were to be found at the various trading centers, thereby furnishing obvious bases for the apostolic witness.

Piecing together the various traditions, one may conclude that Thomas left northwest India when invasion threatened and traveled by vessel to the Malabar coast, possibly visiting southeast Arabia and Socotra en route and landing at the former flourishing port of Muziris on an island near Cochin (c. 51–52 AD). From there he is said to have preached the gospel throughout the Malabar coast, though the various churches he founded were located mainly on the Periyar River and its tributaries and along the coast, where there were Jewish colonies. He reputedly preached to all classes of people and had about seventeen thousand converts, including members of the four principal castes. Later, stone crosses were erected at the places where churches were founded, and they became pilgrimage centres. In accordance with apostolic custom, Thomas ordained teachers and leaders or elders, who were reported to be the earliest ministry of the Malabar church.All the claims of the Syrian Mapillas of Kerala however will not be supported by any ancient Dravidian castes of south India. None of the Dravidians especially Tamils will support the early existence of Christianity in the Sangam age. The claims that Saint Thomas ordained Nambudiris to Christianity by Syrian Christians is not vaild as the Nambudiris migrated from Ahichatra in Nepal to Banavasi on the invitiation of Kadamba king Mayuravarma only in the year 345 AD as mentioned in Keralolpathy and Tulu records such as Grama Paddhati. Portuguese aligned themselves with the Tulu people who had migrated to Kerala after the invasion of Malik Kafur in 1310 against the indigenous Tamils. The Tulu people the various subcastes of Bunt (community) such as Nayara Menava Kurumba and Samantha and Nambudiris became very powerful in Kerala with the Portuguese help. The Tulu dynasties of Samanthas practised Matriarchy and Polyandry which were unknown to Tamils prior to 1310. Syrian Nestorian Christians were integral part of the Portuguese Catholic community between 1498–1660 and were the enemies of Tamils. Portuguese printed Flos Sanctorum (Thamburan Vanakkam) of Henriques in Tamil in the 16th and 17th centuries at Ambazhakkadu near Angamaly, Quilon and Thalassery. The Portuguese Dutch colonial who supported the Tulu people in Kerala managed to exterminate all the Tamil Dravidian people of Kerala including the Villavar rulers of Kerala, Vellalars and Ayars in a matter of 200 years. The colonial power filled Kerala with the Portuguese mixed Mestizo christians and fabricated stories that the ancient Kerala was inhabited not by Tamils but their Nambudiri allies. The Portuguese, Dutch and British colonialism relied on Propaganda and twisted the ancient Dravidian history.