Saint Thomas of Mylapur - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapore, or in Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

São Tomé de Meliapore, in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

Sancti Thomae de Meliapor), was a suffragan diocese

Diocese

A diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...

to the primatial See of Goa in the East Indies

East Indies

East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...

. It was located in Mylapore

Mylapore

Mylapore is a cultural hub and neighborhood in the southern part of the city of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, India. Earlier, Mylapore used to be called Vedapuri....

, and derives its name from the site of its cathedral

Cathedral

A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...

in which the Apostle St. Thomas

Thomas the Apostle

Thomas the Apostle, also called Doubting Thomas or Didymus was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He is best known for questioning Jesus' resurrection when first told of it, then proclaiming "My Lord and my God" on seeing Jesus in . He was perhaps the only Apostle who went outside the Roman...

was reportedly interred on the site of his martyrdom and the Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

word Mailapur (i.e. the town of peacocks), which the Greeks

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

rendered as Maliarpha, the Portuguese as Meliapor, and the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

as Mylapore.

Early history

According to local traditions found amongst Saint Thomas Christians

Saint Thomas Christians

The Saint Thomas Christians are an ancient body of Christians from Kerala, India, who trace their origins to the evangelical activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. They are also known as "Nasranis" because they are followers of "Jesus of Nazareth". The term "Nasrani" is still used by St...

, Apostle Thomas arrived in India (Kodungallur

Kodungallur

Kodungallur is a municipality in Thrissur District, in the state of Kerala, India on the Malabar Coast. Kodungallur is located about 29 km northwest of Kochi city and 38 km Southwest of Thrissur, on National Highway 17 . Muziris the ancient seaport at the mouth of the Periyar River was...

in Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

) in 52 AD. and later moved to the east coast of South India fixing his see at Mylapore, which was then a flourishing city.However Christianity was not a known religeon to the ancient Dravidian Tamils and their Sangam literature

Sangam literature

Sangam literature refers to a body of classical Tamil literature created between the years c. 600 BCE to 300 CE. This collection contains 2381 poems composed by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous The period during which these poems were composed is commonly referred to as the Sangam...

never mentioned it.The Syrian Malabar Nasrani

Syrian Malabar Nasrani

The Syrian Malabar Nasrani people, also known as Saint Thomas Christians, "'Nasrani Mappila'" and Nasranis, are an ethnoreligious group from Kerala, India, adhering to the various churches of the Saint Thomas Christian tradition...

and the European and colonial rulers with their poor knowledge of the ancient Dravidian

Dravidian

-Language and culture:*Dravidian languages, a family of languages spoken mainly in South India and North-Eastern Sri Lanka*Proto-Dravidian, a model of the common ancestor of the above languages*Elamo-Dravidian languages, a proposed language family...

culture claim that Mylapore was an ancient Capital city ruled by Non-Dravidians.No king called Mahadeva or Misdaeus ever ruled ancient Tamilakam

Tamilakam

' refers to the classical era territory of old South Indian royalties covering modern Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Tamil Eelam and southern parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka.; In an academic context, Tamilakam is used to refer to these territories as a single cultural area, where Tamil was the natural...

.Mylapore was never mentioned in any of the Dravidian inscriptions or Sangam literature

Sangam literature

.Silappatikaram which was written from the Chera Capital Kana Vayil Kottam (Cochin) by Chera prince Ilango Adigal

Ilango Adigal

Ilango Adigal was a Tamil poet and a Jain monk, who was instrumental in the creation of Silappathikaram, one of the five great epics of Tamil Literature. Prince Ilango was the brother of Chera king Cheran Chenguttuvan , in South India. Ilango Adigal was born in the Chera dynasty that ruled parts...

never mentioned the existence of Chrisitianity in Kerala in the 4th century AD.The number of converts St. Thomas made having aroused the hostility of the local priests, he reportedly fled from their anger to the summit of what is now known as St. Thomas's Mount situated in a direct line four miles (6 km) to the southwest of Mylapur but was followed by his persecutors, who transfixed him with a lance

Lance

A Lance is a pole weapon or spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior. The lance is longer, stout and heavier than an infantry spear, and unsuited for throwing, or for rapid thrusting. Lances did not have tips designed to intentionally break off or bend, unlike many throwing weapons of the...

as he prayed kneeling on a stone, A.D. 72. His body was brought to Mylapore and buried inside the church built by himself. The present Santhome Church

Santhome Church

San Thome Basilica is a Roman Catholic minor basilica in Santhome, in the city of Chennai , India. It was built in the 16th century by Portuguese explorers, and rebuilt again with the status of a cathedral by the British in 1893. The British version still stands today...

is on this spot. Most of the sources of information on the arrival of Christianity in India are from the Acts of Thomas
Acts of Thomas
The early 3rd century text called Acts of Thomas is one of the New Testament apocrypha, portraying Christ as the "Heavenly Redeemer", independent of and beyond creation, who can free souls from the darkness of the world. References to the work by Epiphanius of Salamis show that it was in...

and a few more oral traditions recorded on documents in later centuries even though none of these could be established in a concrete manner.
The The acts of Judas Thomas the apostle written by Jewish poet Bardesan in the 3rd century AD mentioned Calamina in Persia as the place where St.Thomas was martyred.Saint Thomas who visited the kingdom of Gondophorus of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom

Indo-Parthian Kingdom

The Gondopharid dynasty, and other so-called Indo-Parthian rulers, were a group of ancient kings from present day eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan who ruled India, during or slightly before the 1st century AD...

at the Indo-Persian border with the capital at Taxila to build a Palace for King Gondophares

Gondophares

Gondophares I a Seistani representative of the house of Suren as well as founder and first king of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom. He seems to have ruled c...

where he was commissioned to build a palace for the King. After this Saint Thomas

Thomas the Apostle

visited the kingdom of Misdaeus otherwise called Mazdai. Gondophares

Gondophares

Gondophares I a Seistani representative of the house of Suren as well as founder and first king of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom. He seems to have ruled c...

and Mazdai were Greco-Persian Kings not related to Dravidian Tamils. Saint Thomas

Thomas the Apostle

converted the wife of King Misdeus Queen Tertia,Princess Mygdonia wife of Charisius,Prince Juzanes and Cyphorus who was ordained as Daecon.The infuriated King Misdaes ordered four soldiers to take Saint Thomas to a hill in his Persian kingdom and spear him where he was martyred.Saint Thomas remains were moved to Edessa, Mesopotamia

Edessa, Mesopotamia

Edessa is the Greek name of an Aramaic town in northern Mesopotamia, as refounded by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.-Names:...

from here. All these are Greco-Persian names not the ancient Tamil names.Bardesan never mentioned Brahmins as the killers of Saint Thomas which is purely a Portuguese

Portuguese

Portuguese is an adjective referring to matters related to Portugal. It may refer to:* Portuguese language, natively spoken in Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, East Timor and other countries**including Portuguese dialects...

fabrication.Syrian Christians appeared in Madras only when it became an important outpost of the Delhi Sultanate

Delhi Sultanate

The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...

in the 13th century. Ancient Tamils of Chola Dynasty

Chola Dynasty

The Chola dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which was one of the longest-ruling in some parts of southern India. The earliest datable references to this Tamil dynasty are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BC left by Asoka, of Maurya Empire; the dynasty continued to govern over varying territory until...

and Pandyan Kingdom

Pandyan Kingdom

The Pandyan dynasty was an ancient Tamil dynasty. The Pandyas were one of the four Tamil dynasties , which ruled South India until the 15th century CE. They initially ruled their country Pandya Nadu from Korkai, a seaport on the Southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula, and in later times moved...

s never knew Syrian Christians.Tharisapalli plates

Tharisapalli plates

Tharisapalli plates or Tarsishapalli sasanangal are a set of copper-plate grants that were given to the Assyrian Monk Marwan Sr Easho or Iso by Venad ruler Ayyanadikal Thiruvadikal in 849 AD...

issued by King Aiyanadikal Thiruvadikal of the Ay kingdom

Ay kingdom

The Ay was the earliest ruling dynasty of the southern parts of present-day Kerala, south India. The Ay kings claimed descent from Yadavas or Ayar....

in 825 AD was the first ever Tamil

Tamil

Tamil may refer to:* Tamil language, one of the Dravidian languages primarily spoken in India, Tamil Eelam and Southeast Asia* Tamil script, primarily used to write the Tamil language* Tamil people -See also:...

record to mention of existence of Persian immigrant Christians who had signed in Pahlavi, Kufic

Kufic

Kufic is the oldest calligraphic form of the various Arabic scripts and consists of a modified form of the old Nabataean script. Its name is derived from the city of Kufa, Iraq, although it was known in Mesopotamia at least 100 years before the foundation of Kufa. At the time of the emergence of...

and Hebrew.These Christians were Nestorian

Nestorian

Nestorian or Nestorians can refer to:*Nestorianism, a Christological doctrine developed by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, condemned as heresy by the Council of Ephesus in 431...

christians who were locally known as Nasrani Mappillas as these foreigners married among the local girls. Nestorian Syrians actually came from Iraqs cities, Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

and Karbala

Karbala

Karbala is a city in Iraq, located about southwest of Baghdad. Karbala is the capital of Karbala Governorate, and has an estimated population of 572,300 people ....

in Arab ships in the middle ages.Marco Polo

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

visited the Saint Thomas tomb at Kayalpatnam

Kayalpatnam

Kayalpatnam or Korkai is a town in the Tuticorin district of Tamil Nadu, India. Kayal is referred to in Marco Polo's travel diaries dating to 1250 AD. Korkai or Kayal was an ancient port dating to the 1st centuries of the Christian era and was contemporaneous to the existence of Kollam, another...

. Portuguese intitiallay identified Kalamina where Saint Thomas was martyred with Kalyan of Bombay (Kalyan, India).
Mylapore became famous only after the Portuguese came to colonise India.The Portuguese who with the existence of the Nestorian

Nestorian

Nestorian or Nestorians can refer to:*Nestorianism, a Christological doctrine developed by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, condemned as heresy by the Council of Ephesus in 431...

Christians of Kerala organised an army.Portuguese descendents called Cochin Mestizos appeared when the Portuguese soldiers had numerous mistresses and slave girls in the 16th century.These Cochin Mestizos were the lords during the Portuguese era though they were not allowed to travel to Europe.The Indian Mestizo army of Portuguese had three classes among them they were Mestizo Castizo and Toepass. With this army Portuguese established their power in Madras Quilon and Cochin initially. The Nestorian

Nestorian

Nestorian or Nestorians can refer to:*Nestorianism, a Christological doctrine developed by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, condemned as heresy by the Council of Ephesus in 431...

Syrian community was integral part of this Portuguese community and remained Cathoics till the Portuguese left in 1660.The Portuguese claimed that Saint Thomas visited Kerala in 52 AD and converted Nambudiris of Kerala. Namudiris appeared in Kerala only after the Chalkyan attacks on Kerala. The Portuguese legends were carefully designed to stake their claims over Madras Quilon and Cochin as these early Christians states belonged to Syrian Nambudiris and not to Dravidian

Dravidian

Tamil

s. Syrian Christians were migrants from middle east from the Assyrian Church of the East

Assyrian Church of the East

The Assyrian Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ʻIttā Qaddishtā w-Shlikhāitā Qattoliqi d-Madnĕkhā d-Āturāyē), is a Syriac Church historically centered in Mesopotamia. It is one of the churches that claim continuity with the historical...

before they encountered Portuguese and not related to Dravidian

Dravidian

Tamil

people.
Saint Thomas could have talked Greek and Hebrew and not Tamil

Tamil

. Nasrani Mappillas of Kerala never had any Tamil Bible until Portuguese started printing first bibles in Lingua Malabar Tamul

Lingua Malabar Tamul

Malabar Thamozhi, known to Portuguese as Malabar Tamul and as Malabar language to British was a writing scheme adopted to print books in the spoken language of early indigenous Christians in Malabar..Lingua Malabar Tamul or Malayalam-Tamil was a dialect of Tamil spoken by majority of people of...

in the 16th century. Portuguese cleverly planted the events which happened in the Persian gulf at Mylapore

Mylapore

Mylapore is a cultural hub and neighborhood in the southern part of the city of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, India. Earlier, Mylapore used to be called Vedapuri....

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

Gondophares

Gondophares I a Seistani representative of the house of Suren as well as founder and first king of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom. He seems to have ruled c...

. 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

Punjab region

The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...

, 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

Balochistan (region)

Balochistan or Baluchistan is an arid, mountainous region in the Iranian plateau in Southwest Asia; it includes part of southeastern Iran, western Pakistan, and southwestern Afghanistan. The area is named after the numerous Baloch tribes, Iranian peoples who moved into the area from the west...

, 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
Saint Thomas Christians
The Saint Thomas Christians are an ancient body of Christians from Kerala, India, who trace their origins to the evangelical activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. They are also known as "Nasranis" because they are followers of "Jesus of Nazareth". The term "Nasrani" is still used by St...

or “Church of Thomas” congregations along the Malabar Coast

Malabar Coast

The Malabar Coast is a long and narrow coastline on the south-western shore line of the mainland Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing mountain...

of Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

State in southwest India. According to the most ancient tradition of this church, Thomas evangelized this area and then crossed to the Coromandel Coast

Coromandel Coast

The Coromandel Coast is the name given to the southeastern coast of the Indian Subcontinent between Cape Comorin and False Divi Point...

of southeast India, where, after carrying out a second mission, he died in Mylapore

Mylapore

Mylapore is a cultural hub and neighborhood in the southern part of the city of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, India. Earlier, Mylapore used to be called Vedapuri....

near Madras. Throughout the period under review, the church in India was under the jurisdiction of Edessa

Edessa, Mesopotamia

Edessa is the Greek name of an Aramaic town in northern Mesopotamia, as refounded by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.-Names:...

, 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
Socotra
Socotra , also spelt Soqotra, is a small archipelago of four islands in the Indian Ocean. The largest island, also called Socotra, is about 95% of the landmass of the archipelago. It lies some east of the Horn of Africa and south of the Arabian Peninsula. The island is very isolated and through...

, 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

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

and the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

, 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

Malabar Coast

, possibly visiting southeast Arabia and Socotra enroute and landing at the former flourishing port of Muziris

Muziris

Muziris is an ancient sea-port in Southwestern India on the Periyar River 3.2 km from its mouth. The derivation of the name Muziris is said to be from "Mucciripattanam," "mucciri" means "cleft palate" and "pattanam" means "city". Near Muziris, Periyar River was branched into two like a...

on an island near Cochin (c. AD. 51

Year 51 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Scipio...

–52

Year 52 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sulla and Otho...

). 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

Periyar River

Periyar is the longest river in the state of Kerala, India, with a length of 244 km. The Periyar is known as the lifeline of Kerala; it is one of the few perennial rivers in the region and provides drinking water for several major towns...

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

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

Thomas the Apostle

ordained Nambudiris to Christianity by Syrian Christians is not vaild as the Nambudiris migrated from Ahichatra

Ahichatra

Ahichatra was the ancient capital of Northern Panchala, a northern Indo-Aryan kingdom mentioned in Mahabharata. The remains of this city has been discovered near Ramnagar village in Aonla tehsil of Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh state. The excavations have brought to life a brick fortification...

in Nepal to Banavasi

Banavasi

Banavasi is an ancient temple town in Uttara Kannada District bordering Shivamogga district in the South Indian state of Karnataka .-History:Banavasi is one of the oldest towns in the Karnataka state...

on the invitiation of Kadamba king Mayuravarma only in the year 345 AD as mentioned in Keralolpathy and Tulu records such as Grama Paddhati. Portugese aligned themselves with the Tulu people who had migrated to Kerala after the invasion of Malik Kafur

Malik Kafur

Malik Kafur, General , or Chand Ram as his name was originally, was a slave who became a head general in the army of Alauddin Khilji, ruler of the Delhi sultanate from 1296 to 1316 AD. He was originally seized by Alauddin's army after the army conquered the city of Khambhat...

in 1310 against the indigenous Tamils. The Tulu people the various subcastes of Bunt (community)

Bunt (community)

Bunt , previously spelled Bant, are a community of erstwhile nobility, feudatory and gentry from the region of Tulu Nadu in the south west of India which comprises the districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada in the Indian state of Karnataka and Kasaragod taluk of Kerala...

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

Matriarchy

A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....

and Polyandry

Polyandry

Polyandry refers to a form of marriage in which a woman has two or more husbands at the same time. The form of polyandry in which a woman is married to two or more brothers is known as "fraternal polyandry", and it is believed by many anthropologists to be the most frequently encountered...

which were unknown to Tamils prior to 1310 AD. 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

Villavar

Villavar were the primary rulers among the Dravidians. Villavar emerged from the ancient martial clans of India. The Tamil Villavar were also known as Eyinar under the Pandyan Dynasty and Īḻanar in Sri Lanka and under the Chera Dynasty....

rulers of Kerala, Vellalar

Vellalar

Vellalars were, originally, an elite caste of Tamil agricultural landlords in Tamil Nadu, Kerala states in India and in neighbouring Sri Lanka; they were the nobility, aristocracy of the ancient Tamil order and had close relations with the different royal dynasties...

s 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.

Nestorian period

India's maritime trade began to revive in the ninth century. The Nestorian Christian merchants from Persia, finding that there were Christians in India, brought out their own priests and subsequently bishops to minister to them, whom the Indian Christians for want of instruction did not know to be in heresy. 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. Neither Syrian Christians or Nestorian

Nestorian

Nestorian or Nestorians can refer to:*Nestorianism, a Christological doctrine developed by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, condemned as heresy by the Council of Ephesus in 431...

Christians were not known to rulers of Chola Dynasty

Chola Dynasty

who ruled Mylapore or the Pallava dynasty or Pandyan Kingdom

Pandyan Kingdom

. While most of the Europeans knew the Syrian Malabar Nasrani

Syrian Malabar Nasrani

s and Nestorian pepper traders of Mylapore Dravidian

Dravidian

Tamil

s were not aware of them.

Local people called it Tirumailapur (i.e. Holy Mylapur). It is this chapel that the ambassadors of king Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

of England

England

are supposed to have visited (A.D. 883), and which John of Monte Corvino (1200), Marco Polo

Marco Polo

(1220), Blessed Oderic di Perdone (1318) and Conti

Conti

-People:* Bill Conti, film music director* Bruno Conti, former football player and member of the Italian national football team in 1982* Carlos Conti , Spanish comic writer* Francesco Bartolomeo Conti , Florentine composer...

(1400) certainly visited this area. Later Betumah declined, and about 1500 was only a heap of ruins.
Locals knew by a more popular name Parangi Mala , the hill of Portuguese

Portuguese

First Portuguese Missions

Shortly after the discovery of the Cape route

Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...

to India, caravel

Caravel

A caravel is a small, highly maneuverable sailing ship developed in the 15th century by the Portuguese to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. The lateen sails gave her speed and the capacity for sailing to windward...

ships of Portuguese Franciscans and Dominicans

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

set out to evangelize the no longer sealed lands of the East, and traversed their surf-beaten coasts in search of suitable centres for their operations. A legend tells how, when a caravel with some Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

missionaries engaged in such a search was cruising up the Coromandel Coast

Coromandel Coast

The Coromandel Coast is the name given to the southeastern coast of the Indian Subcontinent between Cape Comorin and False Divi Point...

, one day towards nightfall their attention was attracted by a light on shore and they decided to land there. They did, without knowing for some time 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 forest, 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 Senhora da Luz (Portuguese for Our Lady of Light). The Dominicans followed in their wake, and in 1520 Fre. Ambrosio, O.P., was consecrated bishop for the Dominican missions at Cranganore and Mylapur.

The following year King John III of Portugal

John III of Portugal

John III , nicknamed o Piedoso , was the fifteenth King of Portugal and the Algarves. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the third daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile...

ordered 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, nothing was found; however when the search was given up, both were accidentally discovered. The royal commission 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 in 1522 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 pilgrim's staff and an earthen vase. The find brought ruined Betumah into popularity with the Portuguese, who settled here in large numbers and called the new European town São Tomé (after St. Thomas) and São Tomé de Meliapor, when they wanted to distinguish it from São Tomé

São Tomé

-Transport:São Tomé is served by São Tomé International Airport with regular flights to Europe and other African Countries.-Climate:São Tomé features a tropical wet and dry climate with a relatively lengthy wet season and a short dry season. The wet season runs from October through May while the...

the West African island, though the town was somewhat distant from Mylapur.

The Portuguese Augustinians

Augustinians

The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

were the next missionaries to follow; they took charge of the oratory built over the grave of the Apostle, and built their priory

Priory

A priory is a house of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or religious sisters , or monasteries of monks or nuns .The Benedictines and their offshoots , the Premonstratensians, and the...

and church adjoining it. In the meantime the Dominican missions in the surrounding country gained so much in importance, that in 1540 Fre. Bernardo 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 Mylapur, while St. Francis Xavier 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

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

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 sixteenth century they had extended their operations to Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

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

Bay of Bengal

The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...

. 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, on 9 January 1606 Pope Paul V

Pope Paul V

-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...

separated the Kingdom of Tanjore and the territories to the north of the Cauvery River and bordering the Bay of Bengal

Bay of Bengal

, from the Diocese of Cochin and constituted them a distinct diocese with Saint Thomas of Mylapur as the episcopal city and the parish church of Saint Thomas as the cathedral. At the same time the pope appointed Dom Sebastião de São Pedro, O.S.A.

Augustinians

The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

, 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 ("Padroado

Padroado

The Padroado , was an arrangement between the Holy See and the kingdom of Portugal, affirmed by a series of treaties, by which the Vatican delegated to the kings of Spain and Portugal the administration of the local Churches...

") and presentation

Presentation

Presentation is the practice of showing and explaining the content of a topic to an audience or learner. Presentations come in nearly as many forms as there are life situations...

to the see, and the benefice

Benefice

A benefice is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The term is now almost obsolete.-Church of England:...

s that might be created therein, by the mere facts of their creation and dotation. This right and obligation the Crown of Portugal has exercised and discharged to the end, 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 Portuguese Civil Service Code, and contributing to the support of a still larger number of priests on a graduated scale.

Bishop Sebastião de São 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, who was transferred in 1628 to the See of Cochin. His successor was Luiz Paulo Paulo de Estrela, O.S.F., appointed in 1634, who died at Saint Thomas on 9 January 1637. During the next fifty-six years the see continued vacant: though no less than nine personages were selected by the Crown for the honour, they either declined, were promoted or died before their election was confirmed by the Holy See; in the interval the diocese was governed by administrators selected chiefly from the various religious orders and appointed by the archbishops or vicars capitular sede vacante of Goa. As it was only natural that the members of the religious orders as also secular priests of other nations desired to share in the work of preaching the Gospel to the heathen, in 1622 Gregory XV created the Sacred Congregation de propaganda fide to distribute infidel regions among the religious orders and missionary societies of other nationalities as assistants to the local ordinaries, where there were any, and to supervise their operations. But occasionally the Congregation was misled, which was easy enough when geographical knowledge was neither as correct nor as extensive as at the present time and this occasioned trouble.

The foundations of the British Indian Empire were laid by Sir Francis Day

Francis Day of Madras

Francis Day was an English colonial administrator, associated with the East India Company. He served as a factor of the Company's factory at Masulipatnam from 1632 to 1639. In 1639, he negotiated the purchase of a strip of land south of the Dutch factory at Pulicat from the Raja of Chandragiri,...

in the sandy delta of a tiny river, some three and a half miles north of Saint Thomas, with the beginnings of Fort St. George. The British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

invited the Portuguese of pure and mixed descent to settle in the new township; and as the Portuguese were Catholics, they were ministered to by the clergy from Saint Thomas. In 1642, the Congregation of Propaganda sent out two French Capuchins

Order of Friars Minor Capuchin

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...

to establish a mission in Burma. But when they, landing at Surat

Surat

Surat , also known as Suryapur, is the commercial capital city of the Indian state of Gujarat. Surat is India's Eighth most populous city and Ninth-most populous urban agglomeration. It is also administrative capital of Surat district and one of the fastest growing cities in India. The city proper...

and travelling overland, reached Fort St. George, the British persuaded them not to go further, judging it prudent to have clergymen differing in nationality from, and independent of, the Portuguese ordinary at Saint Thomas to minister to the Catholics in their settlement. Accordingly, R. P. Ephraim', one of the two, wrote to the Sacred Congregation de propaganda fide that there was a prospect of reaping a larger harvest at Fort St. George and the fast rising native town of Madras that was beside it, than in Burma; and in the name of Urban VIII a prefecture Apostolic was established within three and a half miles of the cathedral of Saint Thomas. Ever after there were continual bickerings between the local ordinaries and the French Capuchins, the former insisting on the Capuchins acknowledging their jurisdiction, a claim which the latter, relying on their papal Brief

Papal brief

The Papal Brief is a formal document emanating from the Pope, in a somewhat simpler and more modern form than a Papal Bull.-History:The introduction of briefs, which occurred at the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Eugenius IV , was clearly prompted for the same desire for greater simplicity...

, refused to recognize.

Both the Portuguese and the British had obtained their charters for their respective forts of Saint Thomas and St. George from the local Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

chiefs. But as the Muslims extended their power southwards, before laying siege to Fort St. George, they took Saint Thomas. This was done with the help of the Dutch who bombarded the place from the sea. The Muslim forces began the work of demolishing saint Thomas' walls in January, 1697. The Muslim governors then settled on the waste land, separating Saint Thomas from Mylapur, which was soon covered with the residences of Islamic settlers. These three townships exist as a European quarter, a Muslim quarter and a Hindu quarter. The name of Saint Thomas and that of Mylapur are often used interchangeably. Having reduced Saint Thomas and deprived it of its battlements, the Muslims did not further trouble the resident Portuguese, who regarded the place as still a Portuguese possession and managed its affairs with an elected council of which the ordinary of the place, for the time being, was the president.

The Jesuit Dom Gaspar Afonso Álvares was the fourth Bishop of Saint Thomas. His presentation was confirmed by the Holy See

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

in 1691, and he was consecrated at Goa in 1693. In the meantime the Capuchins of the French Prefecture Apostolic of Fort St. George spread apace and took charge of the French settlement of Pondicherry. Not to offend the French, Dom Gaspar allowed them to minister to the Europeans and their descendants, but in order to assert his right, placed the Indian Christians in Pondicherry under the care of members of his own Society from France. This led to a number of complaints addressed to Rome about the interference of the Bishop of Saint Thomas of Mylapur with the work of the missionaries Apostolic, causing Clement XI, by his letters "Gaudium in Domino" of 1704, to issue an injunction restraining the missionaries from invading the rights of the diocesan. But the Congregation de propaganda fide issued a Decree in 1706 in support of its own missionaries, which reversed what the Pope had ordained. Under these circumstances the bishop again appealed to the pope, who, by the Brief "Non sine gravi" of 1711, annulled the Decree of the Congregation and reaffirmed the right of the diocesan to make what arrangements he chose at Pondicherry, which was situated within the limits of his diocese. Cardinal Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon

Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon

Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon was a papal legate and cardinal to the East Indies and China.-Biography:...

, who was on his way to China as legate

Papal legate

A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....

of the Holy See, having touched at Pondicherry, hearing of the doings of the Capuchins, placed the French Prefecture Apostolic of Madras, the name by which Fort St. George and its surroundings were coming to be known, under interdict

Interdict (Roman Catholic Church)

In Roman Catholic canon law, an interdict is an ecclesiastical censure that excludes from certain rites of the Church individuals or groups, who nonetheless do not cease to be members of the Church.-Distinctions in canon law:...

. The Capuchins submitted forthwith and the interdict was removed.

In the meantime Dom Gaspar had died in 1708. Owing to his advancing years, he had been given a coadjutor with the right of succession, Dom Francisco Laynes, S.J., of the Madura mission, in the Diocese of Cochin. Dom Laynes was consecrated at Lisbon on 19 March 1708, as Bishop in partibus of Sozopolis

Sozopolis

Sozopolis may refer to the following ancient sites:* Sozopolis, Thrace * Sozopolis, Pisidia, in Asia Minor...

. He came to India the same year, but did not take possession of his see until 1710. Though Bishop Laynes was Portuguese, the Portuguese Augustinians of Bandel

Bandel

Bandel , founded by Portuguese settlers, is a gram panchayat in Chinsurah-Mogra block in Chinsurah subdivision of Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is under Chinsurah police station. A major junction station of Eastern Railway, it is 40 km from Howrah station...

defied his authority as their diocesan. He therefore placed Bandel under interdict on 14 July 1714; on the submission of the Augustinians the interdict was removed on 8 October 1714. Bishop Laynes died at Chandernagore in Bengal in 1715, and was succeeded by Manuel Sanches Golão, who was appointed in 1717 and reached India in 1719. Dom Manuel welcomed the Italian Barnabites

Barnabites

The Barnabites, or Clerics Regular of Saint Paul is a Roman Catholic order.-Establishment of the Order :It was founded in 1530 by three Italian noblemen: St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria The Barnabites, or Clerics Regular of Saint Paul (Latin: Clerici Regulares Sancti Pauli, abbr. B.) is a Roman Catholic...

as invaluable co-operators in the work of preaching the Gospel in Burma (now Myanmar

Myanmar

Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....

), though he had regularly served mission stations there. These friendly relations with the Italian Barnabites were maintained, as they recognized the authority of the diocesans. Bishop Golão was succeeded by José Pinheiro, S.J., who was consecrated in 1726. He sanctioned the arrangement whereby French Jesuits were to have spiritual charge of Chandernagore, in Bengal. During his time the Barnabite mission in Burma was created a vicariate Apostolic. Bishop Pinheiro died on 15 March 1744, and was succeeded by António da Incarnacao, O.S.A., who was consecrated at Goa in 1747.

In 1746 the French marched on Madras and, making Saint Thomas their head-quarters, attacked and took Fort St. George, which they held and improved till August, 1749, when they restored it to Admiral Boseawen under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748)

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748 ended the War of the Austrian Succession following a congress assembled at the Imperial Free City of Aachen—Aix-la-Chapelle in French—in the west of the Holy Roman Empire, on 24 April 1748...

. Saint Thomas had been nominally a Portuguese possession from 1697, without the semblance of a military force to resist its occupation by a foreign power, as the French did when operating against Madras. To prevent a repeat of this invasion tactic Admiral Boscawen annexed the place and built a redoubt to the south-east of it, incorporating it into Madras. The British suspected that the capture of Fort St. George by the French was largely due to the information supplied to them by the French Capuchi. R. P. Rene, on whom the suspicion rested most heavily, was deported to France and the others were expelled from the fort and settled in Georgetown (Madras), where the cathedral of Madras now stands, four miles (6 km) from the cathedral of Saint Thomas.

On the death of Bishop da Incarnacão on 22 November 1752, Fre. Teodoro de Santa Maria, O.S.A., was presented for the see and confirmed by the Holy See. He belonged to the priory at Saint Thomas, but hesitated to receive episcopal consecration. Two Italian Barnabites destined for the vicariate Apostolic in Burma came with letters of commendation to the bishop-elect, who welcomed and speeded them to their destination. At last Fre. Teodoro, the bishop-elect, renounced the see into the hands of Fre. Bernardo de São Caetano, O.S.A., who was then consecrated bishop. Bishop Bernardo in turn consecrated one of the two Barnabites just mentioned, Dom Percotto, Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Burma, in 1768. But Bishop Percotto did not reach the field of his labours, as on his voyage back to Burma the vessel foundered.

The Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur was ministered to at this period by the Portuguese Franciscans, Portuguese Dominicans

Dominican Order

, Portuguese Augustinians

Augustinians

The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

, and Portuguese Jesuits; besides these, there were French Jesuits and Italian Barnabites

Barnabites

working in the diocese in harmony with the ordinary, and French Capuchins defying their authority, at least occasionally. One drawback of this total manning of the diocese with the religious orders was the absolute neglect to form an indigenous clergy to meet the emergency that presently arose. For about this time the Marquess of Pombal

Marquess of Pombal

Count of Oeiras was a Portuguese title of nobility created by a royal decree, dated from July 15, 1759, by King Joseph I of Portugal, and granted to Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Head of the Portuguese Government....

suppressed the houses of the Society of Jesus in Portugal and thus cut off the supply of Portuguese Jesuits to the diocese. The emergency became still more acute in 1773, when Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus. Withal, the situation was not quite so hopeless as to call for drastic measures in regard to the diocese from without: it was not till 1834 that the houses of the other religious orders in the Portuguese dominions were suppressed, and as the Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur was situated wholly outside of Portuguese territory, nothing prevented the Portuguese religious orders from thriving there. Nevertheless, as at home vocations became fewer, the houses in India gradually died out, the last to be represented in the diocese being the Portuguese Augustinians in Bengal, the last member of the order dying in 1869.

On the extinction of a religious house in any place, the property and rights of the religious revert to the Church, as represented by the local diocesans. But Catholic Europe was so incensed against Portugal for the initiative taken by the Marquess of Pombal

Marquess of Pombal

against the Society of Jesus, that without waiting to weigh the justice of their action in turn, reprisals became the order of the day in the Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur, the Congregation de propaganda fide supporting the missionaries of other nationalities against the Portuguese. On the suppression of the Society of Jesus by the Holy See, the Fathers of the Missions étrangères of Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

were sent out to take charge of the Society's missions in the Dioceses of Saint Thomas of Mylapur and of Cochin, of which Msgr Champenois, Bishop in partibus of Dolichum, was appointed vicar Apostolic. Bishop São Caetano resented this, as he was filling up the places of the Jesuits with Indian secular missionaries from Goa; but his protests were of little avail. In course of time, as the members of the other religious orders died out, these same Indian missioners from Goa assumed charge of their churches under the order of their diocesans, though more often than not there was a dispute between them and the missionaries Apostolic. The latter did not hesitate to misrepresent the Goan missionaries to be ignorant and immoral as a whole though the diocesan seminary at Goa was conducted by the Jesuits until their suppression, and thereafter by members of the other religious orders till 1835. On the other hand, between 1652 and 1843, no less than seven of their fellow-countrymen were deemed worthy of episcopal consecration by the Crown of Portugal, the Holy See and the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, not to speak of the Venerable Joseph Vaz

Joseph Vaz

Blessed Joseph Vaz was a Catholic Oratorian priest from Goa. He is known as theApostle of Ceylon....

, who was of their race. Howbeit, since then the majority of the priests working in the diocese were Indian Secular missionaries from Goa.

Bishop São Caetano died in 1780, and was succeeded by Fre. Manuel de Jesus Maria José, O.S.A., a native of Goa and the prior of the Augustinian convent there. He was consecrated in 1788, and died at Saint Thomas in 1800. He was succeeded by Fre. Joaquim de Menezes e Ataíde, O.S.A., who was consecrated and took charge of his see by procuration in 1805, but before he could come out he was transferred to the Diocese of Funchal on Madeira. As a result, Fre. José de Garça who on the death of Bishop Jesus Maria José had been appointed administrator, continued as such till his death on 14 July 1817, when Fre. Clemente de Espírito Santo, O.S.F., was appointed administrator. During the latter's tenure of his office, Madras was visited by Dom Pedro de Alcântara, O.C., Bishop in partibus of Antipheles, 'Vicar Apostolic of the Grand Mogul' [sic] and visitor Apostolic of the French Capuchin missions, who "according to the mind of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide declared the Capuchins of Madras to be independent of the Bishop of Saint Thomas of Mylapur not alone in temporal but also in spiritual matters". But the administrator declined to accept his decision, as being a reaffirmation of the Decree of the same Sacred Congregation, which had been annulled. Fre. Clemente resigned the administration of the diocese to Fre. Manuel de Avé Maria, O.S.A., in 1820.

The British power was now paramount on the Coromandel Coast

Coromandel Coast

The Coromandel Coast is the name given to the southeastern coast of the Indian Subcontinent between Cape Comorin and False Divi Point...

and English was universally spoken by the Indo-European population that formed the mainstay of the Catholic congregation of Madras, as all over India. Withal, the French Capuchins would not conform to the times, but continued to preach in Portuguese (which had degenerated in Madras to a patois

Patois

Patois is any language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. It can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant...

) and Tamil

Tamil language

, the language of the Indian Christians. As a result, many Indo-European families gave up practicing Catholicism and in time became Protestants. Finding their representations to the Capuchin prefect Apostolic unheeded, a band of young men represented the matter to the Holy See. In response the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide raised the French Capuchin prefecture into a vicariate Apostolic and sent out Dr. O'Connor, 0 S A with Irish priests, in 1828 to take over the work of the Frenchmen.

Portuguese Civil War of 1826 & consequences

On the outbreak of the Peninsular wars

Peninsular War

The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...

, King João VI of Portugal, with his elder son Dom Pedro, sought refuge in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

. Presently a movement was set on foot to have his younger son, Dom Miguel

Miguel of Portugal

Dom Miguel I, sometimes Michael , was the King of Portugal between 1828 and 1834, the seventh child and second son of King John VI and his queen, Charlotte of Spain....

, proclaimed king, a movement which had the support of the religious orders, but not of the bishops or of the secular clergy. However, João returned to Portugal and quelled the insurrection. In the meantime Brazil proclaimed its independence with Dom Pedro as its emperor an arrangement in which João acquiesced.

On the death of João VI the loyalists in Portugal proclaimed Dom Pedro of Brazil King of Portugal; but, as Dom Pedro preferred staying in Brazil, he ceded his right to Dona Maria da Glória, his younger daughter, appointing his brother, Dom Miguel, as regent till she should grow up, when the regent was to marry her and thus heal the rupture between the loyalists and the adherents of Dom Miguel. The adherents of Dom Miguel, however, proclaimed him king. Dom Pedro came over to Portugal in 1826 to assert his daughter's rights, and finally defeated his brother in 1834. Dom Miguel was perpetually banished and those who sided with him were punished, amongst those to suffer being the religious orders, whose houses were suppressed and properties confiscated.

In consequence of this last measure mainly, diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Portugal were broken off. The Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide deemed the moment opportune to extend the jurisdiction of the Vicar Apostolic of Madras to Saint Thomas of Mylapur and its missions southwards to the River Palar (those south of the Palar being assigned to the Vicar Apostolic of Pondicherry), to declare Burma to be an independent vicariate and to create in the northern part of the diocese (Bengal and the adjoining countries) an independent vicariate Apostolic under Dr. St. Leger, with a staff of British priests. From a certain point of view this action was unfortunate, as it caused the loyalist Portuguese to regard these measures as retaliatory and not as prompted by a desire for the spiritual welfare of the regions concerned. And, indeed there was nothing up to this to show that Portugal had shirked her responsibilities in regard to the diocese, or that the successive ordinaries of the diocese had been found wanting, beyond the mere accusation of those missionaries Apostolic who were sent into their territories and, failing to recognize their authority, had received scant courtesy. Howbeit, when called upon by the Vicar Apostolic of Madras to surrender his churches and submit to him, the administrator replied that he would gladly do so when instructed by the authority that placed him there. The vicar Apostolic then called upon the priests and the subjects of the Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur to submit to him, but they all replied in much the same terms. The same thing happened in the parts of the diocese between the Rivers Palar and Cauvery, and in Bengal; whereupon the vicar Apostolic declared the administrator, priests and people of the Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur schismatics, and from the fact that a large number of the priests in the diocese were from Goa, defined their action as the "Goan schism". However the Holy See seems not to have taken much notice of the "schism" and diplomatic relations were resumed with Portugal in 1841. Then followed a series of acts unworthy of the Church, when both sides strove to (re)capture churches that they claimed, church was built against church, altar raised against altar, and violence and police-courts were a common resort.

On 14 March 1836, Dom António Tristão Vaz Teixeira was presented by the Crown of Portugal to the Holy See as Bishop of Saint Thomas of Mylapur, and left Lisbon for India a month later. As the Holy See had in the meantime refused to confirm the presentation, the Vicar Capitular

Vicar capitular

A diocesan administrator is a provisional ordinary of a Roman Catholic particular church. The college of consultors elects an administrator within eight days after the see is known to be vacant. The college must elect as administrator a priest or bishop at least 35 years old...

of Goa appointed him administrator of the diocese in place of Fre. Avé Maria, who had died on 5 August 1836. Dom António assumed charge on 15 October following, and died on 3 September 1852. He was succeeded by Padre Miguel Francisco Lobo, an Indian from Goa (as were all the administrators of the diocese up to 1886), who was appointed on 3 October 1852.

On the restoration of the Society of Jesus by Pius VII the French Jesuits returned to the parts of the Diocese of Cochin, which their Portuguese brethren had evangelized; though opposed by the authorities of that diocese; and in 1846, the Congregation de Propaganda Fide erected their missions into a vicariate Apostolic. In 1850 the Salesians of Annecy

Annecy

Annecy is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.It lies on the northern tip of Lake Annecy , 35 kilometres south of Geneva.-Administration:...

(Savoy, France) were sent out to take charge of the country between the Rivers Godavery and Mahanuddy, which was at the same time created a vicariate Apostolic. In the same year, the country between the Chittagong

Chittagong

Chittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...

and Kabudak River was created a vicariate Apostolic, committed to the care of the Fathers of the Holy Cross; at about the same time the Fathers of Missions etrangeres of Paris replaced the Italian Barnabites in Burma. Thus the Diocese of Mylapur was divided up between six vicariates: Madura

Madura

Madura is an Indonesian island off the northeastern coast of Java. The island comprises an area of approximately 4,250 km². Madura is administered as part of the East Java province. It is separated from Java by the narrow Strait of Madura.-History:...

, Pondicherry, Madras, Vizagapatam, Western Bengal, and Eastern Bengal and Burma.

In 1857 a concordat

Concordat

A concordat is an agreement between the Holy See of the Catholic Church and a sovereign state on religious matters. Legally, they are international treaties. They often includes both recognition and privileges for the Catholic Church in a particular country...

was entered into between the Holy See and Portugal, pending the execution of which both the vicars Apostolic and the authorities of the diocese were to enjoy pacific possession of the places they actually held. But the Crown of Portugal undertook manifestly too great a burden, to wit, to provide for the spiritual needs of the whole of India, and consequently the concordat remained a dead letter. In 1854 the Royal Missionary College of Bomjardim at Sernache, Portugal was founded for the training of secular priests for the Portuguese missions beyond the seas. Meanwhile the missions of the diocese had been greatly weakened by secessions to the vicars Apostolic. The missions were situated in British territory and as beyond the clergy there were scarcely any Portuguese subjects to be found throughout the diocese there was no particular inducement or the people to cling to the see.

In Madras itself, the Irish vicars Apostolic and missionaries had been educated at Maynooth College, and almost all of them were doctors of divinity. They were socially and intellectually on an equality with the best British talent. Protestants as well as Catholics crowded to hear their sermons in churches and their lectures on scientific matters. When Dr. O'Connor first came out, he brought letters of introduction to the governor and was a guest at Government House. On the first occasion when he drove to St. Mary's of the Angels, the quasi-cathedral of his vicariate wearing a cocked hat and buckled shoes, long coat and knee-breeches, the old ladies protested that he could be no Catholic bishop but the emissary of the Government to make them all Protestants. These things lent prestige to the Catholic name. One of the first things the Irish missionaries did was to open a seminary (to which a college was attached) and ordain Indo-European priests, who proved of invaluable help to them. They also brought out the Irish Presentation nuns, whose schools are yet the best in all Southern India. As a result, almost all the Catholic Indo-Europeans and Indians with pretensions to respectability flocked to the vicars Apostolic, till in the end it was deemed opprobrious to term one as belonging to the Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur. Hence in the course of the negotiations preparatory to the fresh concordat of 1886, the Cardinal Secretary of State

Cardinal Secretary of State

The Cardinal Secretary of State—officially Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope—presides over the Holy See, usually known as the "Vatican", Secretariat of State, which is the oldest and most important dicastery of the Roman Curia...

was in a position to show that out of 1,167,975 Catholics in British India, the Portuguese missions of the Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur could claim only some 30,000 subjects, with a proportionate number of churches, one seminary from which a priest was occasionally ordained, one high school at Saint Thomas, two middle schools at Tuticorin and Manapad

Manapad

Manapad is a coastal village in India, 60 km from Tuticorin and 18 km south of Tiruchendur, and one of the first places to be visited by St. Francis Xavier in 1542 when he initiated missionary activity on the Fishery coast. Francis Xavier is said to have lived and prayed in a cavern on...

and a number of elementary schools; while any single vicariate Apostolic had a better equipment. But of these 30,000 souls which were all that were left to the Portuguese of the once flourishing diocese, it has truly, though scarcely laudably, been said that "they loved the Portuguese more than their own immortal souls ".

Late colonial period

Such was the state of affairs when in 1886 a fresh concordat was entered into between the Holy See and Portugal, which showed itself disposed to accommodate itself to the changed conditions of the times. The concordat was preceded by negotiations with England, to make sure that the British Government would not object to the continuance of the Portuguese royal patronage in its Eastern possessions. Accordingly, the Primacy of the East of the archbishops of Goa was reaffirmed, while in addition they were accorded the honorary title of Patriarch of the East Indies

Patriarch of the East Indies

The Titular Patriarch of the East Indies in the Catholic hierarchy is the title of the Archbishop of Goa and Damão in India; another title of his is that of the Primate of the East. Unlike the patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches sui juris, the Patriarch of the East Indies enjoys a purely...

and the substantial privilege of presiding at the plenary councils of the East Indies, which were ordinarily to assemble at Goa

Goa

Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...

, while the special relations existing between the Archdiocese of Goa and its suffragan dioceses were to be continued. But the limits of the original Portuguese dioceses were contracted, the Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur being assigned two distinct pieces of territory on the Coromandel Coast, some 150 miles (241.4 km) apart- the first is a triangle of an area of some 800 square miles (2,072 km²), in the northern angle of which Saint Thomas lies; the other is roughly the ancient Kingdom of Tanjore. In addition, both by the concordat and certain appendixes thereto, the diocese was given five churches in the Archdiocese of Madras -- the old vicariates Apostolic having been converted into dioceses as a sequel to the concordat by the Constitution "Humanae salutis" of 1886, of Leo XIII -- three churches in the Archdiocese of Calcutta (Western Bengal), five churches in the Diocese of Dacca (Eastern Bengal), and twenty-four churches in the Diocese of Trichinopoly (which originally belonged to the Diocese of Cochin), with their congregations.

The first bishop appointed to Saint Thomas of Mylapur on the conclusion of the new concordat was the princely Dom Henrique José Reed da Silva, who was at the time coadjutor to the Archbishop of Goa, and who took possession of his see in 1886. He was the first to sign himself for the sake of brevity, Bishop of Mylapur, a practice which his successors have adopted. Hence the diocese became better known in India as the Diocese of Mylapur. His was the arduous task of putting the broken shreds of the old historic diocese together and rendering it once again the thing of beauty it was. His first care was to reform the diocesan seminary, and in order to have an efficient body of European priests with their heart in their work, he brought out a number of young boys from Portugal and gave them a collegiate course in English, in the college to which he had raised the existing high-school, previous to their entering upon their ecclesiastical course of studies. His successors reaped the benefit of his policy. He opened a convent of European nuns at Saint Thomas, and another of Indian nuns in Mylapur, which have since thrown out branches into various parts of the diocese. He invited English-speaking priests to join his diocese (a call to which the present writer responded) and established the "Catholic Register", a weekly newspaper. His courtly manners and noble bearing made him a favourite in society. Soon the people felt it an honour to point to him as their bishop. He pulled down the old cathedral, the chapel over the grave of St. Thomas and the old Augustinian priory, that had nothing antique to commend them, and built a magnificent cathedral in the centre of which, between the nave and chancel, lies the grave of St. Thomas. Despite the good he was accomplishing, he incurred the ill-will of certain parties connected with the churches situated in other dioceses, and when he found the accusations brought against him accepted without demur in Europe, he resigned and retired to Portugal, as titular Bishop of Trajanopolis

Trajanopolis

Trajanopolis or Traianopolis can refer to:* Traianopolis , a city in Phrygia Pacatiana* Traianopolis , a city in western Thrace...

.

He was succeeded by Dom António José de Sousa Barroso, who within a few months of his arrival at Saint Thomas was promoted to the See of Oporto. Bishop Barroso was succeeded by bishop Dom Teotónio Manuel Ribeiro Vieira de Castro, who was presented on 12 June 1899, and confirmed by Leo XIII ten days later. He was consecrated at Oporto on 15 August 1899, and reached Saint Thomas on 23 December. The tercentenary of the creation of the diocese occurred in January, 1906, in which almost all of the archbishops and bishops of the vast tract that constituted the original Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur took part in person in addition to the delegate Apostolic and other prelates, numbering fifteen bishops in all. With the single exception of the Archdiocese of Madras, all of the dioceses into which the original Diocese of Saint Thomas of Mylapur is divided were served by non-British clergy, save for the Indian and few Indo-European priests, where there are any. But even in the Archdiocese of Madras, served by the British Missionary Society of St. Joseph, the majority of the priests and the coadjutor bishop were from the Continent. Dacca was served by the Fathers of the Holy Cross from Notre Dame, Indiana, United States of America.

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