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Rh as elsewhere, beneath the troubled surface there has ever been, and still is, a deep underflow of piety, which, from its gentle and unobtrusive character, is not chronicled in human records, but whose fruit will be found at the great day to the praise and glory of God."

Summary

The Church of Malabar claims to have been founded by the Apostle St. Thomas. Without committing ourselves to that, we may at any rate grant that at a very early date, perhaps in the 2nd century, there were Christians in India. Apparently, in the 4th century, a number of Persian Christians, fleeing from persecution, came to the south-western coast. They depended on the Katholikos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon,used his rite and spoke Syriac. At least from that time Malabar had a line of Metropolitans ordained and sent out by the Katholikos. This is, then, one of the earliest of the famous missions of the East Syrian Church. Naturally, they followed their mother Church into the Nestorian heresy. In the 16th century the Portuguese came, and at the synod of Diamper in 1599 made this Church Uniate. But there was a reluctant party which returned to schism as soon as the Portuguese were driven out in 1663. However, the schismatics got their new line of bishops, not from the Nestorians, but from the Jacobites. They became Jacobite, probably understanding little of the issue involved, and adopted the Jacobite rite. Since then they have quarrelled incessantly among themselves, and have had continual mutual schisms and rival Metropolitans. The majority are Uniates. Among the others, most are Jacobites, now divided into two parties. The Church Missionary Society has formed a Reformed sect, called Mâr Thomas Christians. There are a small Nestorian body and several other sects.