St Thomas the Apostle

Thomas appears in the Gospels as the apostle who wanted evidence, and whose doubt produced the confession that John records as My Lord and my God. That episode gave him a name in English usage that says less about him than the rest of his life does.

The tradition held by the Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala is that he landed at Maliankara near Kodungallur, the ancient port of Muziris, in AD 52, arriving by the trade route that already linked the Malabar coast to the Middle East.

He is said to have founded seven and a half churches, the Ezharappallikal, at places including Kodungallur, Kollam, Niranam, Nilackal, Kokkamangalam, Kottakkavu and Palayoor, with the half church usually counted as Thiruvithamcode. Several of these communities have continuous histories and are living parishes today.

The tradition continues that he travelled on to the Coromandel coast and was killed at Mylapore, near present-day Chennai, around AD 72. The San Thome Basilica there is built over the tomb, one of only a small number of churches in the world built over an apostle’s grave.

Historians debate the detail, as they do for most first-century accounts. What is not in doubt is that the Christian community of Kerala is among the oldest anywhere, that it named itself after him, and that its liturgy, its families and its identity have been shaped by that claim for centuries.