Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/431

 SAINT THOMAS

383

SAINT THOMAS

around its base, a service which the English name — St. Thomas's Mount — equally renders. His body was brought to Mylapur and buried in the house in which he had hved, and which was used as a place of wor- ship. A notable portion of the relics of the Apostle was obtained for the church of Edessa, at an early period, by Christian traders from Persia. The Edes- sene relics were in course of time conveyed to Chios, and finally to Ortona in Italy, where they are yet venerated.

India's maritime trade languished and died out about the fourth century. Though the country was thus cut off from all communication with the external world, the succession of bishops was kept up till the revival of Brahminism at Mylapur in the seventh centur>% when there was a ruthless massacre of Jains and Christians. The Bishop of Mylapur and his priests were put to death, and the remnant of his flock fled across the country to the mountains of the west. As the sees on the west coast were vacant at the time, the Apostolic succession was interrupted, and on the death of the priests then living, the Chris- tians kept the light of their faith burning by lay baptism, the recitation of their prayers, by wearing a cross, and by surreptitious visits to the tomb of the Apostle in the ruined church at Mylapur; in this they were helped by the fact that shortly after the massa- cre, Mylapur had been overwhelmed by the sea, which returned to its bed after wTccking the city and causing the Brahmins to flee and build a new Mylapur a mile further inland. This new Mylapur is to this very day almost purely Brahmin. The site of old Mylapur is now a sand dune, and would have been wholly forgot- ten but for the interest it possessed for the early In- dian Christians and their successors.

Nestorian Period. — India's maritime trade began to revive in the ninth century'. The Nestorian mer- chants from Persia, finding that there were Christians in India, brought out their own priests and subse- quently bishops to minister to them, whom the Indian Christians for want of instruction did not know to be in heresy. Presently, a new Nestorian town began to rise on the sand dune that covered old Mylapur, the most prominent feature of which was a chapel over the site of the Apostle's tomb. Hence the Persian and Arabian traders called the town Betumah (i. e. house, church, or town of Thomas. But the Indian Christians called it Tirumailapur (i. e. Holy Myla- pur). It is this chapel that the ambas-sadors of Alfred the Great of England are supposed to have visited (a. d. 883), and which John of xMonte Corvino (1200), Marco Polo (1220), Blessed Oderic di Perdone (1318), and Conti (1400) did for a certainty visit. Later Be- tumah declined, and about 1500 was only a heap of ruins.

First Portuguese Missionaries. — Shortly after the discovery of the Cape route to India, caravels of Por- tuguese Franciscans and Dominicans set out to evan- gelize the no longer sealed lands of the East, and tra- versed their surf-beaten coasts in search of suitable centres for their operations. There is a legend which tells how, when a caravel with some Franciscan mis- sionaries engaged in such a search was cruising up the Coromandel Coast, one day towards nightfall their at- tention was attracted by a hght on shore and they decided to land there. They did, without knowing then or for some time after, that they had landed at the ruins of Betumah. But when they attempted to approach the light, it preceded them inland, across the ruins of the Nestorian town, over an empty stretch of ground, past (new) Mylapur and into a for- est, where the light vanished. Here the Franciscans established a mission and built a church (still extant) in honour of Our Lady of Light in 1516, whence the locality, no longer a forest, but a wealthy residential quarter, is still known as The Luz — after Nossa Sen- hora da Luz (that is, Our Lady of Light). The Do-

minicans followed in their wake, and in 1520 Fre. Am- brosio, O.P., was consecrated bishoj) for the Domini- can missions at Cranganore and Mylapur.

The following year King John III of Portugal or- dered a search to be instituted for the tomb of the Apostle St. Thomas. As long as the tomb, with the counterpart of the Ortona relics, was looked for, noth- ing was found; however when the search was given up, both were accidentally discovered. The roj-al com- mission found traces of the old Nestorian chapel, but nothing of the tomb. But while directing operations to build an oratory commemorative of the spot, and digging deeply in the sandy soil to lay its foundations, it found a masonry tomb, containing what might have been expected to be found in the Apostle's tomb: some bones of snowy whiteness, the head of a lance, a pil- grim's staff, and an earthen vase. This was in 1522. The fact brought ruined Betumah into popularity with the Portuguese, who settled here in large num- bers and called the new European town San Thome (after St. Thomas) and San Thome de Meliapor, when they wanted to distinguish it from Sao Thome, the African island, though the town was somewhat distant from Mylapur.

The Portuguese Augustinians were the next mis- sionaries to follow; they took charge of the oratory- built over the grave of the Apostle, and built their priory and church adjoining it. In the meantime the Dominican missions in the surrounding country gained so much in importance, that in 1540 Fre. Ber- nardo da Cruz, O.P., was consecrated and sent out to tend them. There is nothing to show when the Fathers of the Society of Jesus settled at Saint Thomas, but by 1648 they had a college in the place and a church and residence at Mjdapur, while St. Francis Xavicr spent three months in 1545 at Saint Thomas praying at the grave of the Apostle for light in regard to his projected mission to Japan. All of these; missionaries, and those who came after them, had no definite spheres of work, but worked side by side and in dependence on the local ordinaries, when these were in due course appointed. By the end of the si.xteenth century they had ex-tended their opera- tions to Bengal and Burma. In 1552 the Diocese of Cochin was erected, and made to include, among other places, Ceylon and the countries bordering the Bay of Bengal. Saint Thomas was thus constituted a parish of the Diocese of Cochin; and the Augustinian church adjoining the chapel over the grave of the Apostle was designated the parish church of Saint Thomas.

Creation of the Diocese. — At the instance of King Philip II of Portugal, Paul V, on 9 January, 1606, sepa- rated the Kingdom of Tanjore and the territories to the north of the Cauverj^ River and bordering the Bay of Bengal, from the Diocese of Cochin and constituted them a distinct diocese with Saint Thomas of Myla- pur as the episcopal city and the parish church of Saint Thomas as the cathedral. At the same time the pope appointed Dom Sebastiao de San Pedro, O.S.A., who had been presented by the King of Portugal, to be the first bishop of Saint Thomas of Mylapur, and granted Philip and his heirs and successors in perpetuity the right of patronage and presentation to the see, and the benefices that might be created therein, by the mere facts of their creation and dotation. This right and obhgation the Crown of Portugal has exercised and discharged to the present, by making the bishops a princely allowance, paying a certain number of priests' salaries, with periodical increases, leave with free passages and pensions, on the lines of the Portu- guese Civil Service Code, and contributing to the sup- port of a still larger number of priests on a graduated scale. Bishop Sebastiao de San Pedro arrived at Saint Thomas in 1611, but in 1614 was promoted to the See of Cochin. In 1615 he was succeeded by Luiz de Brito e Menezes, likewise an Augustinian,