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The history of Kerala's Christians - who today represent 21 percent of the population - is said to date back to the first century AD, some three centuries before Christianity received official recognition in Europe. These days, the five main branches among a bewildering assortment of churches are the Nestorians (confined mainly to Thrissur and Ernakulam), the Roman Catholics (found throughout Kerala), the Syrian Orthodox Church (previously known as the Jacobite Syrians), the evangelical and reformist Mar Thoma Syrians (a splinter group of the Syrian Orthodox), and the Anglican Church of South India . A legend, widely believed in Kerala but the object of academic skepticism, states that St Thomas the Apostle - "Doubting Thomas" - landed on the Malabar coast in AD 52, where he converted several brahmins and others, and founded seven churches. Muziris, his first port of call, has been identified as Kodungallur; the traditional accounts of Jews who arrived there in AD 68 state that they encountered a Christian community. Their number was augmented in the fourth century by an influx of Syrians belonging to seven tribes from Baghdad, Nineveh and Jerusalem, under the leadership of the merchant Knayi Thoma (Thomas of Cana).
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Christians gradually came to the forefront as traders, and eventually gained special privileges from the local rulers. The early communities followed a liturgy in the Syriac language (a dialect of Aramaic). Latin was introduced by missionaries who visited Kollam in the Middle Ages; once the Catholic Portuguese turned up, in 1498, a large community of Latin Christians developed, particularly on the coast, and came under the jurisdiction of the Pope. In the middle of the seventeenth century, with the ascendancy of the Dutch, part of the Church broke away from Rome, and local bishops were appointed through the offices of the Jacobite Patriarch in Antioch. During the nineteenth century, the Anglican Church amalgamated with certain "free" churches, to form the Church of South India. At the same time, elements in the Syrian Church advocated the replacement of Syriac with the local language of Malayalam. The resultant schism led to the creation of the new Mar Thoma Syrian Church. Christmas is an important festival in Kerala; during the weeks leading up to Dec 25, innumerable star-shaped lamps are put up outside shops and houses, illuminating the night and identifying followers of the faith. |
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