History of the Syrian Church of India

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This book covers the history of the Syrian church of India from its founding by the apostle Thomas in 52 A.D., until the first half of the twentieth century. That this church was subject to the See of Antioch is evidenced by the emigration in 345 A.D., of seventy- two Syrian families of Edessa (Al-Ruha) to Malabar. They came to be known by the native Syrians as the Canaanites. Unfortunately, the relations of the Church of India with the See of Antioch were interrupted by the rise of the Nestorian teaching. The coming of the Portuguese at the end of the fifteenth century, followed by the Dutch and then the British and their efforts to convert the Syrian Indians to their own persuasions, is discussed with fairness and objectivity. The several delegations of the Apostolic See of Antioch to India from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries form an indispensable account of the vicissitudes of a struggling native Indian church trying to preserve its Antiochene identity. In its entirety, the History of the Syrian Church of India is a great historical contribution.