and its
dioceses and missions throughout Asia, including
India.
Portuguese efforts to Catholicise Saint Thomas Christians Thomas the Apostle is credited by tradition for founding the Indian Church in 52 AD. This church developed contacts with the
Church of the East religious authorities based in
Edessa, Mesopotamia at the time. Historically, this community was organised as the
Province of India of the
Church of the East by
Patriarch of Babylon Timothy I (780–823 AD) in the eighth century, served by bishops and a local dynastic
archdeacon. In the 14th century, the Church of the East declined due to
persecution from
Tamerlane. The 16th century witnessed the colonial overtures of the Portuguese
Padroado aiming to bring St Thomas Christians into the
Latin Catholic Church, administered by the
Portuguese Padroado Archdiocese of Goa, leading to the first of several rifts in the community. The efforts of the Portuguese culminated in the
Synod of Diamper, formally subjugating them and their whole
Archdiocese of Angamaly as a suffragan see to the
Archdiocese of Goa administered by
Roman Catholic Padroado missionaries. The death of the last
metropolitan bishop – Archbishop Abraham of the
Saint Thomas Christians, an ancient body formerly part of the
Church of the East in 1597 gave the then Archbishop of Goa
Menezes an opportunity to bring the native church under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. He was able to secure the submission of
Archdeacon George, the highest remaining representative of the native church hierarchy. Menezes convened the
Synod of Diamper between 20 and 26 June 1599, which introduced a number of reforms to the church and brought it fully into the
Latin Church of the Catholic Church. Following the Synod, Menezes consecrated Francis Ros, S. J. as Archbishop of the
Archdiocese of Angamalé for the Saint Thomas Christians; thus created another suffragan see to Archdiocese of Goa and
Latinisation of St Thomas Christians started. The
Saint Thomas Christians were pressured to acknowledge the authority of the Pope and most of them eventually accepted the Catholic faith, but a part of them switched to
West Syriac Rite. Those who were not able to touch the cross tied ropes on the cross, held the rope in their hands and made the oath. Because of the weight it is believed by the followers that the cross bent a little and so it is known as "Oath of the bent cross" (Coonen Kurisu Sathyam). This demanded administrative autonomy for the local church. A few months, later Archdeacon Thomas was ordained as bishop by twelve priests with the title
Thoma I. At this time, Rome intervened and Carmelite Missionaries were sent to win the Thomas Christians back. Carmelites could convince the majority that the local church needs bishops and the consecration of the Archdeacon Thomas was invalid because the consecration was conducted not by a bishop, but by priests. Many leaders of the community rejoined the missionaries. But in 1663, Dutch conquered Cochin supplanting the Portuguese on the Malabar coast. Portuguese Missionaries had to leave the country and they consecrated
Palliveettil Chandy kathanaar as the bishop for the Catholic Thomas Christians on 1 February 1663. Meanwhile,
Thoma I appealed to several eastern Christian churches for regularising his consecration. The
Syriac Orthodox Patriarch responded and sent metropolitan
Gregorios Abdul Jaleel of
Jerusalem to India in 1665. He confirmed Thoma I as a bishop and worked together with him to organise the Church. These events led to the gradual and lasting schism among the Saint Thomas Christians of India, leading to the formation of
Puthenkūr (New allegiance) and
Pazhayakūr (Old allegiance) factions. The
Pazhayakūr comprise the present day
Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and
Chaldean Syrian Church which continue to employ the East Syriac Rite. The
Puthenkūr, who entered into a new communion with the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, an
Oriental Orthodox church, inherited from them the West Syriac Rite, replacing the old East Syriac Rite liturgy.
Puthenkūr is the body from which present day
Jacobite Syrian Christian Church,
Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church,
CSI Syrian Christians,
Mar Thoma Syrian Church,
St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India,
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and
Malabar Independent Syrian Church originate.
Arrival of Europeans , originally built in 1503, is the first European colonial church built in India. The Portuguese explorer
Vasco da Gama died at
Cochin in 1524 and was originally buried in this church. In 1453, the
fall of Constantinople to the
Sunni Islamic
Ottoman Caliphate marked the end of the
Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire), and severed European trade links by land with Asia. This massive blow to
Christendom spurred the
Age of Discovery as Europeans started seeking alternative routes east by sea along with the goal of forging alliances with pre-existing Christian nations. Along with Portuguese long-distance maritime travellers that reached the
Malabar Coast in the late 15th century, came Portuguese missionaries who made contact with the
St Thomas Christians in Kerala. These Christians were following
Eastern Christian practices and under the jurisdiction of
Church of the East. The missionaries sought to introduce the
Latin liturgical rites among them and unify
East Syriac Christians in India under the
Holy See. This group, which existed in
Kerala relatively peacefully for more than a millennium, faced considerable persecution from Portuguese evangelists in the 16th century. This later wave of evangelism spread Catholicism more widely along the
Konkan coast. The South Indian coastal areas around Kanyakumari were known for pearl fisheries ruled by the
Paravars. From 1527, the Paravars, being threatened by Arab fleets offshore who were supported
Zamorin of Calicut, sought the protection of the
Portuguese who had moved into the area. The protection was granted on the condition that the leaders were immediately baptised as Christians and that they would encourage their people also to convert to Christianity. The Portuguese in turn wanted to gain a strategic foothold and control of the pearl fisheries. The deal was agreed and some months later 20,000 Paravars were baptised en masse, and by 1537 the entire community had declared itself to be Christian. The Portuguese navy destroyed the Arab fleet at
Vedalai on 27 June 1538.
Francis Xavier, a Jesuit, began a mission to the lower classes of Tamil society in 1542. A further 30,000 Paravars were baptised. Xavier appointed catechists in the Paravar villages up and down the coastline to spread and reinforce his teachings. Paravar Christianity, with its own identity based on a mixture of Christian religious belief and Hindu caste culture, remains a defining part of the Paravar life today. In the 16th century, the proselytisation of Asia was linked to the
Portuguese colonial policy. Missionaries of the different orders including
Franciscans,
Dominicans,
Jesuits,
Augustinians arrived with the Portuguese colonisers. The history of Portuguese missionaries in India starts with the Portuguese clergy who reached
Kappad near Kozhikode on 20 May 1498, along with the Portuguese explorer
Vasco da Gama who was seeking to form anti-Islamic alliances with pre-existing Christian nations. The lucrative spice trade was further temptation for the Portuguese crown. When he and the Portuguese missionaries arrived, they found Christians in the country in Malabar known as St. Thomas Christians who belonged to the then-largest Christian church within India. Emperor
Akbar the Great holds a religious assembly in the Ibadat Khana; the two men dressed in black are
Jesuit missionaries, c. 1605. During the second expedition, the Portuguese fleet comprising 13 ships and 18 priests, under Captain
Pedro Álvares Cabral, anchored at Cochin on 26 November 1500. Cabral soon won the goodwill of the
Raja of Cochin. He allowed four priests to do apostolic work among the early Christian communities scattered in and around Cochin. Thus Portuguese missionaries established Portuguese Mission in 1500. Dom
Francisco de Almeida, the first Portuguese Viceroy got permission from the Kochi Raja to build two churches – namely
Santa Cruz Basilica (1505) and
St. Francis Church (1506) using stones and mortar, which was unheard of at that time, as the local prejudices were against such a structure for any purpose other than a royal palace or a temple. In the beginning of the 16th century, the whole of the east was under the jurisdiction of the
Archdiocese of Lisbon. On 12 June 1514, Cochin and Goa became two prominent mission stations under the newly created
Diocese of Funchal in
Madeira. In 1534,
Pope Paul III by the Bull Quequem Reputamus, raised Funchal as an
archdiocese and
Goa as its
suffragan, deputing the whole of India under the
diocese of Goa. This created an
episcopal see – suffragan to
Funchal, with a jurisdiction extending potentially over all past and future conquests from the
Cape of Good Hope to China. The first converts to Christianity in Goa were native Goan women who married Portuguese men that arrived with
Afonso de Albuquerque during the
Portuguese conquest of Goa in 1510. The Inquisition office persecuted
Hindus,
Muslims,
Bene Israels,
New Christians and the
Judaising Nasranis.
Crypto-Hindus were the primary target of the 250 years of persecution and punishment for their faith by the Catholic prosecutors. Most affected were the
Shudras (12.5%) and farmers (35.5%). In 1557,
Goa was made an independent archbishopric, and its first suffragan sees were erected at
Cochin and
Malacca. The whole of the East came under the jurisdiction of
Goa and its boundaries extended to almost half of the world: from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, to Burma, China and Japan in East Asia. In 1576, the suffragan See of Macao (China) was added; and in 1588, that of Funai in Japan. The
Diocese of Angamaly was transferred to Diocese of Craganore in 1605, while, in 1606 a sixth suffragan see to Goa was established at San Thome, Mylapore, near the modern Madras, and the site of the National Shrine of
St. Thomas Basilica. The suffragan sees added later to Goa. were the prelacy of Mozambique (1612), Peking (1609) and Nanking (1609) in China. A significant portion of the crew on Portuguese ships were Indian Christians. The
Portuguese were however unable to establish their presence in Mangalore as a result of the conquests of the
Vijayanagara ruler
Krishnadevaraya and
Abbakka Rani of
Ullal, the Bednore Queen of Mangalore. Most of
Mangalorean Catholics were not originally from
Mangalore but from
Goa, which they fled during the
Sackings of Goa and Bombay-Bassein and to escape the persecution of the
Goan Inquisition. The
Franciscans spearheaded the
evangelisation of the "Province of the North" () headquartered at
Fort San Sebastian of Bassein (close to present-day
Mumbai), but the fort's officials were subordinate to the viceroy in the capital of
Velha Goa. From 1534 to 1552, a priest by the name António do Porto converted over 10,000 people, built a dozen churches, convents, and a number of orphanages hospitals and seminaries. Prominent among the converts were two yogis from the
Kanheri Caves who became known as Paulo Raposo and Francisco de Santa Maria. They introduced Christianity to their fellow yogis, converting many in the process. The descendants of these Christians are today known as the
Bombay East Indian Christians who are predominantly Roman Catholics and inhabitants of the north Konkan region. In
Portuguese Bombay and Bassein missionary work progressed on a large scale and with great success along the western coasts, chiefly at Chaul, Bombay, Salsette, Bassein, Damao, and Diu; and on the eastern coasts at San Thome of Mylapore, and as far as Bengal etc. In the southern districts the Jesuit mission in Madura was the most famous. It extended to the Krishna river, with a number of outlying stations beyond it. The mission of Cochin, on the Malabar Coast, was also one of the most fruitful. Several missions were also established in the interior northwards that of Agra and Lahore in 1570 and that of Tibet in 1624. Still, even with these efforts, and many vast tracts of the interior northwards were practically unreached. With the decline of the Portuguese power, other colonial powers namely the Dutch and British gained influence, paving the way for the arrival of Protestantism.
Arrival of Protestant missions , built in 1718, is one of the oldest Protestant churches in India. Beginning in about 1700, Protestant missionaries began working throughout India; this led to the establishment of different Christian communities across the Indian Subcontinent.
German Lutherans and Basel mission The first Protestant missionaries to set foot in India were two
Lutherans from Germany,
Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and
Heinrich Plütschau, who began work in 1705 in the Danish settlement of Tranquebar. They translated the Bible into the local
Tamil language, and afterwards into
Hindustani. They made little progress at first, but gradually the mission spread to
Madras,
Cuddalore and
Tanjore.
Christian Friedrich Schwarz was a prominent German Lutheran missionary who arrived in India in 1750. His mission was instrumental in the conversion of many people from
Tamil Nadu to Lutheranism. He died in Tamil Nadu and was buried in St.Peter's Church at Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.
Hermann Gundert a German missionary, scholar, and linguist, as well as the maternal grandfather of German novelist and Nobel laureate
Hermann Hesse was a missionary in the
South Indian state of
Kerala and was instrumental in compiling a Malayalam grammar book, Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam (1859), in which he developed and constructed the grammar currently spoken by the
Malayalis, published a Malayalam-English dictionary (1872), and contributed to work on
Bible translations into Malayalam.
Eugen Liebendörfer was the first German missionary doctor in India as part of the
Basel Mission. He built hospitals in Kerala and
Karnataka. Another Basel Missionary
Ferdinand Kittel worked in South Indian state of Karnataka in places such as Mangalore, Madikeri and Dharwad in Karnataka. He is renowned for his studies of the Kannada language and for producing a Kannada-English dictionary of about 70,000 words in 1894. He also composed numerous Kannada poems.
Hermann Mögling was a German missionary to Karnataka, he is credited as the publisher of the first ever newspaper in the Kannada language called as
Mangalooru Samachara in 1843. He was awarded a doctorate for his literary work in Kannada called as Bibliotheca Carnataca. He also translated Kannada literature into German. Another Lutheran German missionary to Kerala was
Volbrecht Nagel, he was a missionary to the Malabar coast of India. Initially associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church, he later joined the
Open Brethren, and is remembered now as a pioneer of the
Kerala Brethren movement.
William Carey and the Baptists In 1793,
William Carey, an English
Baptist Minister, came to India as a missionary but also as a man of learning in economics, medicine and
botany. He worked in
Serampore, Calcutta, and other places. He translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and numerous other languages and dialects. He worked in India despite the hostility of the British East India Company until his death in 1834. Carey and his colleagues, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, blended science, Christianity, and constructive Orientalism in their work at the Danish settlement of Serampore, near Calcutta. Carey saw the dissemination of European science and Christianity as mutually supportive and equally important civilising missions. He also supported a revival of Sanskrit science. Carey played a key role in the establishment of the Agricultural Society of India. Ward, beginning in 1806, published important commentaries on ancient Hindu medical and astronomy texts. In 1818, Carey and his fellow missionaries founded
Serampore College to nurture a uniquely Indian variety of European science. is one of the oldest continuously operating educational institutions in India.
Other missions The
London Missionary Society was the first Protestant mission in
Andhra Pradesh which established its station at
Visakhapatnam in 1805.
Anthony Norris Groves, a
Plymouth Brethren missionary arrived in 1833. He worked in the
Godavari delta area until his death in 1852.
John Christian Frederick Heyer was the first Lutheran missionary in the region of
Andhra Pradesh. He founded the Guntur Mission in 1842. Supported initially by the Pennsylvania Ministerium, and later by the Foreign Mission Board of the General Synod, Heyer was also encouraged and assisted by British government officials. He established a number of hospitals and a network of schools throughout the Guntur region. The
Church Missionary Society (CMS), a mission society working with the
Anglican Communion, began sending missionaries to India and established mission stations at
Chennai (Madras) and
Bengal, then in 1816 at
Travancore. The
CMS Mission to India expanded in the following years. The successors of the Protestant church missions are the
Church of South India and the
Church of North India. During the
Bettiah Raj of Bihar, the ethnoreligious community of
Bettiah Christians was established in India in the 17th century by Christian missionaries belonging to the
Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, a Roman Catholic
religious order. The Capuchins were personally invited to establish the Bettiah Christian Mission by Maharaja Dhurup Singh after the Italian Capuchin priest Joseph Mary Bernini treated his ill wife.
Pope Benedict XIV, on 1 May 1742, approved the appointment of the Capuchins at the Bettiah Fort in a letter to Maharaja Dhurup Singh. Many upper-class Bengalis converted to Christianity during the
Bengali Renaissance under
British Rule, including
Krishna Mohan Banerjee,
Michael Madhusudan Dutt,
Anil Kumar Gain, and Gnanendramohan Tagore,
Aurobindo Nath Mukherjee. During the 19th century, several American Baptist missionaries evangelised in the northeastern parts of India. In 1876, Dr. E. W. Clark first went to live in a
Naga village, four years after his Assamese helper, Godhula, baptised the first
Naga converts. Rev. and Mrs. A.F. Merrill arrived in India in 1928 and worked in the southeast section of the
Garo Hills. Rev. and Mrs. M.J. Chance spent most of the years between 1950 and 1956 at Golaghat working with the Naga and Garo tribes. Even today, the heaviest concentrations of Christians in India continue to be in the Northeast among the
Nagas,
Khasis,
Kukis, and
Mizos.
Role in the Indian independence movement Indian Christians were involved even at early stages of the nationalist movement in colonial India, both in the
Indian National Congress and the wider
Indian independence movement: Indian Christian involvement in the early stages of the nationalist movement is also reflected in the high levels of participation in the activities of the Indian National Congress. During the period from its inception up until about 1892 all the evidence suggests that Indian Christians enthusiastically supported the National Congress and attended its annual meetings. For example, according to the official Congress report, there were 607 registered delegates at the Madras meeting of 1887; thirty-five were Christians and, of these, seven were Eurasians and fifteen were Indian Christians. Indian Christians alone made up 2.5 per cent of the total attendance, in spite of the fact that Christians accounted for less than 0.79 per cent of the population. The Indian Christian community was also well represented at the next four sessions of the Congress. The proportion of Indian Christian delegates remained very much higher than their proportion in the population, in spite of the fact that meetings were sometimes held in cities such as Allahabad and Nagpur, far removed from the main centres of Christian population. The
All India Conference of Indian Christians (AICIC) played an important role in the Indian independence movement, advocating for
swaraj and
opposing the partition of India. The AICIC also was opposed to separate electorates for Christians, believing that the faithful "should participate as common citizens in one common, national political system". The All India Conference of Indian Christians and the
All India Catholic Union formed a working committee with M. Rahnasamy of
Andhra University serving as president and B.L. Rallia Ram of
Lahore serving as general secretary; in its meeting on 16 April 1947 and 17 April 1947, the joint committee prepared a 13-point memorandum that was sent to the
Constituent Assembly of India, which asked for
religious freedom for both organisations and individuals; this came to be reflected in the
Constitution of India. == Art and architecture ==