St. Thomas Evangelical Fellowship of India - Catholicism in India

Catholicism in India

In the 6th century the Syrian Church came under the influence of the Nestorians. Then in the 16th century, the Portuguese, under Vasco de Gama, came to Kerala. Soon after the arrival of the Portuguese in India in the 16th century, this small church was brought under the hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church. They forcefully converted the Church members to Catholicism. This led to the historical Koonan Kurishu Satyam, by which many members of the Church declared themselves free of the yokes of Catholics. Thus after fifty-four years (in AD 1653) it was able to reassert its independence, though it lost a good number of its members to the Catholic fold.

The re-established Church consecrated Mar Thoma I as the Metropolitan by the laying on of hands of twelve presbyters of the Church. The Roman Catholic association, though brief, had left its indelible mark on the emancipated Church. However, this led to more dependence on the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch and his extremely Orthodox doctrines engulfed the Church. The Church came into close contact with the Jacobite Syrian Church of Antioch. As a result of this, some of the doctrines and practices of the Antiochean Church such as the doctrine of Real Presence (metousiosis), Invocation of Saints, Prayer for the dead, Traditions of the fathers and most of their rituals, gained firm ground in the ancient Church of Malabar.