Saint Thomas in India Thomas the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, according to the New Testament. He is informally called doubting Thomas because he doubted Jesus resurrection when first told [the Gospel of John], followed later by his confession of faith, My Lord and my God, on seeing Jesus wounded body. Traditionally, he is said to have travelled outside the Roman Empire to preach the Gospel, travelling as far as India. According to tradition, the Apostle reached Muziris near Cochin in the company of a Jewish merchant Abbanes in AD 52. From there he is said to have preached the gospel throughout the Malabar Coast. The various churches he founded were located mainly on the Periyar River and its tributaries and along the coast, where there were Jewish colonies. He reputedly preached to all classes of people and had about 17,000 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. The followers of St. Thomas are today known as Saint Thomas Christians or Nasranis. He is often regarded as the Patron Saint of India, and the name Thomas remains quite popular among Saint Thomas Christians of India. According to tradition, St. Thomas was killed in 72 AD. Nasrani Churches from Kerala in South India state that St. Thomas died at Mylapore near Chennai in India and his body was interred there. The accounts of Marco Polo from the 13th century state that the Apostle had an accidental death outside his hermitage in Chennai by a badly aimed arrow of a fowler who not seeing the saint shot at peacocks there. Later in the 16th century, the Portuguese in India created a myth that St. Thomas was killed in Chennai by stoning and lance thrust by local priests, based on the wrong interpretation of inscriptions found on the Pehlvi Cross discovered at St. Thomas Mount in 1547. Later decipherments of the inscriptions by experts proved this myth to be false. The Patristic literature states that St. Thomas died a martyr, in east of Persia, by the wounds of the four spears pierced into his body by the local soldiers. Some authorities state that St. Thomas died a natural death and that he died in Edessa.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:51:51 +0000
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