The Assyrian project has three Syrian Christians from Kerala, who knowingly or unknowingly joined that group.
N38706 – Alexander (R2) : Location is shown in the map as Kerala, India. Also his mtDNA result is M. He is clearly a Keralite Syrian Christian.
148762 – Muringan (H) : Self evident.
N23437 – Joseph (L) : Knanaya. This already discussed in the forum. This L (like other Knanaya Ls) has the DYS marker 385a as 7. I do not want to troll, but as per YHRD, such results are found in South India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia , under populations classified as Dravidian. The last two are known to have significant Tamil population. No L result with 385a as 7 has been found outside these regions.

Having said this, we also need to remember that the main Haplogroups are very old, much older than the existing national, linguistic or ethnic groupings. That is why you would often find multiple haplogroups in the same population. The FTDNA page for India has almost every other haplogroup in the world. Hence, the importance of sub-haplogroups, haplotypes and the DYS markers.

Please see
https://www.forumbiodiversity.com/showthread.php?t=4484

NB : There is another R2 result (Birko) classified as “Unassigned”. Birko is an Assyrian name (or surname).
thanks,
Kezhakken

We can find more traces of Namboodiri/some of the Indo-Aryan J2G? lineage even in Dravidian communties of Kerala & Tamil Nadu. Similarly in the Syriac christian communities we can find plenty of Dravidian lineages. Marriages were conducted selecting the family names in order to avoid this mix up of ethinicity. Unless everybody joins the genealogy project we cannot put together the complete picture. Lots of caste issues in the country can also be solved to a large extent.

R1 – 25%, L – 25 %, J2 – 25% , R2 + H – 25 %

Thanks for reading the article and for the change in your tone comparing to your post number 22547 dated 26 June 2010.

I have never argued that it was only the consecration issue that caused majority of saint Thomas’ Christians joining the Palli veettil Chandy faction. If you go through the article carefully, I have detailed a number of factors- at least seven. Consecration issue was one among them.

I believe that a significant factor was the lack of legitimate Bishopric consecration for Parambil Thomas ( Archdeacon Thomas – Mar Thomas I) and the related negative propaganda by the Portuguese, when Parambil Chandy was legitimately consecrated as a Bishop and based his seat at Kuravilangadu Church. You can see the churches at Manarcaud and Puthuppally were with Parambil Chandy initially and they moved on to Puthencoor only in 1701, when a non native Bishop was consecrated as the successor of Parambil Chandy.

Your comment “the Saint Thomas Christians were never under anyone ordained, but rather under secular rulers called Arch Deacons.” is surprising. From time to time we had East Syriac prelates. The Bishop of Malabar was called the Metropolitan and the gate of All India as in 8th century documents and the Metropolitan of the throne of saint Thomas and the whole of Christians of India. When there was a period where we did not have a Bishop for 60 years, our community sent a delegation to Babylon to get Bishops in AD 1490. Arch deacon was the leader but the Spiritual authority was the Bishop. We honored the Patriarch of East Syrian Church as our supreme head and remembered the name of the Catholicose Patriarch in our Holy services. After the Synod of Diamper in AD 1599, the position of the Arch deacon was reduced, our community was divided into parishes under Latin Bishops with the Arch deacon as a mere Vicar General.

If you analyse the history, we can see that, even though Arch deacon was the Prince and gate of Saint Thomas’Christians, Epscopacy had a very important role among saint Thomas’ Christians. Many of the sacraments were administered only by Bishops. We can read in many books about east Syrian Bishops quarrelling with Portuguese missionaries about administration of baptism. Raza was celebrated only by Bishops. Whenever there was lack of Bishops in Malabar, our community had sent delegates to Babylon to fetch Bishops. We can see in the history that Joseph the Indian and other two travelling to Babylon to get Bishops and returned with Mar John and Mar Thomas in AD 1492.

We can also see in the history, in AD 1576, there were two East Syrian Prelates in Kerala, one from catholic communion- Mar Abraham and the other from the so called Nestorian- Mar Simon , dividing the whole Saint Thomas Christian community with rival arch deacons. Mar Abraham was based at Angamali with Arch deacon Gheevarghese and Mar Simon was based at Kaduthuruthy with a rival arch deacon.
So, Bishops had a very important role and position among Nasranis.

If consecration was not an issue, why did Mar Thoma I seek help from other eastern Churches to get a legitimate consecration?
The time period 1657-1665 was not a small period. During those 8 years, one group had a legitimate Bishop and the other without a legitimate Bishop with its leadership too inconfident about its status and hence seeking help from all the available sources for a legitimate consecration. At the end, the Catholic group had a native Bishop from Pakalomattom family and based at Kuravilangadu and people were hopeful that there is going to be a new line of native Bishops from Palliveettil Chandy. What else is needed for people to join that faction?

I agree with you, there are many more factors. I have discussed them in the article already.

With due respect, the “Ordination” issue which you are trying to bring up is questionable.
When Archdeacon Thomas was consecrated Mar Thoma I, the entire church was behind him. His ordination was made valid within a small gap of 12 Years by Gregorios Abdul Jaleel Bava. What you are trying to portray is that, the very same people who backed Archdeacon Thomas, later questioned what they themselves did. Are our ancestors such cowards? Or people who were unable to stand steadfast with the very decision made by them?

I would rather hold to the story of “Ordination”, if the Saint Thomas Christians were under ORDAINED leaders for past 1500 years. However, the Saint Thomas Christians were never under anyone ordained, but rather under secular rulers called Arch Deacons. How did suddenly the issue of “ordination” and its importance become of dominance, when we were never under anyone ordained? Question?

The Kozhukatta issue is just one example of the many inducement tactics used by the Portuguese. To claim, that everyone joined the catholic party because of “ordination” is ridiculous. Their were people who were induced, people who were tortured, people who found it more convenient etc etc .

You, yourselves mentioned, “The division and group rivalry began only after the arrival of Joseph Sebastiani in AD 1657 and the consecration of Palli Veettil Chandy Cathanaar as Bishop in AD 1663.” Abdul Jaleel Bava arrived in 1665. So as per your article in a very short span of time, less than 8 years, most of the Christians were thoroughly convinced about the effects of “Ordination’. Also were the activities of Joseph Sebastiani any Christian ?

I agree that you wrote a secular article without much harm to anyone. However narrowing down to just one issue (which as per me, would have been the least of all) is questionable. I am not going to mention anything about what Sebastiani and all others did and answer to all the questions which you posed because, this is a platform for unity. Sorry for being a bit rude.

During the time of Christ even Afghanisthan was part of India. Taxila and kandhahar mentioned in Hindu epics are in today’s Afghanisthan which was ruled by the vedic Kushan kings then. King Vasudeva 1 was the prominent among them. St Thomas is said to have visited the Kushan courts and that of “almost lost from history” king Gandhoporous, now in Punjab. Recent excavation of some coins proved his existence.

The seat of the brahmanism was today’s Afghanisthan and parts of Persia. The fire worshipping parsi community was based in todays Iran. The brahmins were inspired by some of the customs of Parsees like wearing of the sacred thread, marrying with the fire as the witness,etc. The brahmins/Afghanis are thought to be the lost sheeps of Israel by some. After the inquisition of Islam, the brahmins and the parsees were forced to flee to India and south India in the eighth/ ninth century. so the chances that St. Thomas would have converted some brahmins in Kerala is a remote chance unless some brahmins who have come to Kerala for trade. The chances are that he could have converted some Jains and Buddhists. There were plenty of Jain temples at that time. Suthan Battery, Waynad Dt. boasts of one such old Jain temple if I am right. Fish was the symbol of Christians at that time may be because some of the followers were fishermen. The St. Mary’s church Niranam had a Jain temple in the vicinity it seems.

Yuz Asaf or St. Josaphat a catholic saint of the first century hails from today’s Afghanisthan/Pakisthan and is laid to rest in Roz Bal, Srinagar. His guru is Barlaam who is said to have converted him. Barleem and Josaphat can be found in famous literary works. Some Ahmedi Muslim believe that St. Josaphat is none other than Christ himself who survived crucifixtion and preached in India before dying in Srinagar. The Ahmedis are not accepted by other Muslims. At that time the Syriac christians had reached Kashmir, Leh, Laddakh, China and even Mongolia. The Catholic church dates St Josaphat to 4th century. You can find the Syriac Christian community in Tankse village, Ladakh even today. St Thomas could have made mutiple visits to India. St. Bartholomew had also preached in India.

Syriac language is not from Syria like most people think. The actual word is Syriac. Thereby Syriac Christians. Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke and Armaic is not a dead language, it is still spoken in some parts of northern Iraq and Syria. The land between the Tigris and the Euphrates is Mesopotamia, the land of the Babylonians, Assyrians and the Chaldeans. They are all related to each other. There was a great kingdom of Assyrians starting somewhere around 600 BC and reined until the beginging of Islam. The Kingdom covered the mediterranean regions starting from Libya to Persia. The Assyrians are mediterranean caucasoids. They were good in trade and commerce. It was these Assyrians who traded with Kerala, migrated and settled in Kerala around 200BC . So we are Assyrians not Syrians. Assyrians are fair skinned. Gee Varghese spelt Giwargis is a famous name among Assyrians.

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. St.Thomas’s remains were taken to Edessa near here by a merchant. You can find Nineveh in the old testament. Assyrians are devout christians even today. They are persecuted every day in Iraq. Of the 1.4 million population 50% have already migrated to the west.

Once Islam spread along with Arabic, Syriac lost ground. St. Thomas spoke Syriac and is believed to be Assyrian. When christ was preaching in and around Jordan word spread in Kerala of a messiah who had come and were eager to meet him or to know more about the message he was preaching from God. Jesus died early and went to heaven. So the apostle came to Kerala on an invitation, he converted his own people first and not the Jews. Along with him came about 72 families comprising about 400 people.

The early churches had the synogogue like appearence inside the church and the people were half Jewish by nature which the Portuguese disliked and wanted to convert them to the western rite. (They suspected the worship of other spirits with similarities to the Holy Spirit ). This happened at the Synod of Diamper 1699 in Udayamperoor near Tripunithura, Ernakulam Dt. The church was divided into the Jacobite church (from which the Marthomites and Indian orthodox were derived) and the Syro Malabar church. The Syriac Christians filled the gap of Vysias in Kerala. After the Namboodiris came to Kerala, came the Nairs from Ahichaitra near todays Nainital/UP. The Chera Kings lost their supremacy. The Namboodiris or Kerala brahmins took the chance to fill the void. The remaining Nairs or serpent worshippers migrated to Bengal and to today’s Nagaland, the land of serpents. Today 91% of Nagas are christians. Some Nairs and Namboodiris may have converted duely after many centuries but defintely not in the first century.

Conclusively, a DNA test of the Syriac Christians shall be matched with the Assyrians to prove the link. Most of the Syriac christians married among fellow Syriac Christians so not much dilution can be felt. The Assyrians do not claim us one among them but they suspect some ancient link. We are St. Thomas Christians to them.

Comments and objections are welcome for my blog.

I see some people have boasted about some jewish connection to our community, which i strongly suspect. However my family (vettikunnel) comes out of one of the four brahmin families (pakalomattom) who got converted by St Thomas. But instead of desperately trying to prove our history to others i believe why dont we get united (like the jews) and help out anyone and everyone in our community. ( i suppose thats the first symbol of having a little jewish blood .. i mean unity).. As far as i have seen we are least united. More over we fight on silly issues. (Mostly faught for some greedy priest or high priests to keep the church and its huge earning under their control.) But we as the educated and intellectual generation of our community, we must strive to reduce these fights and unite ourselves. We can start with making this website a much better one with user logins and a bigger database so that we can post useful stuffs for others in it.. Like some good job vacancies or posting some good intellectual stuffs.. We can even share our achievements in different areas. (even our expertise). We can even make a list of all the great achievers in our community and also strive harder to be one and make our people proud. (trust me we have great achievers in our community when compared to any others).I hope my words makes sense for most of you here or else please excuse me.

Knai Thommen was a merchant and his building of ‘Seven and half’ churches with his money had nothing to do with missionary zeal and the advancement of the Christ’s gospel. It was only to show the local already available christians who were true believers (converted by St. Thomas) his muscle and money power and then try to subdue them with the ‘imported’ teachings to them. The original believers simply had to move away and gather elsewhere because of the imported teachings that Knai Thommen was trying to Impose on them through the new churches built by him. His people got a taste of his own medicine later when teh Portugese held a Synod at ‘Udayamperoor’ in the15th century with the help of teh King of Cochin and forced all christians in Kerala to follow the Pope!!

Lord’s disciple Thomas planted assemblies which were founded on the teaching of Lord Jesus Christ in letter and in spirit. They were humble gathering usually held at homes of believers. This was the practice in the apostolic tradition of early christianity in Antioch and in Jerusalem. Churches came later and imposing church buildings ensued. The face of Christianity was changing also in Antioch which had become the centre of Chritianity since th fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

In the 1st Century itself in Antioch the converted Jewish Christians were facing persecution by the Romans probabl;y instigated by the ‘Other Jewish’ and moved away to Hedessah which was part of the Persian/Babylonian empire and is now in Iraq. Jewish Christians later had to flee Hedessah when Catholic percecution widened and affcted them and probably around the same time Knai Thommen informed them of that faraway land called ‘Muziris’ where Jewish had been settling in peace from King Solomon’s times and which now also had a settlement of Jews and locals converted to Christioanity by Lord’s own disciple St. Thomas.

Their route to Kerala was the well traveresed ancient route along the river Tigris/Euphrates reaching what is now the area of Kuwait/river mouth of ‘Shaat al Arab’ to the Arabian Gulf and the Ahwaz side of Pesia where historically Jewish people were treated good for centuries, along waht is now Pakistan, supping and rejoicing with the believers converted by St. Thomas there, probably also stopping by in What is now Gujrat and seeing christians there, then to Kerala.

What they did after reaching Kerala in anybody’s guess.

True: Knai Thommaen had an illicit affair with a washerwoman.
True: The offsprings were ill treated and held as slaves by teh so called true sons of Knai Thommen.
True: They were called brown Jews????? ( I am not sure but I believe this is the only probablity)

Later came more Jewish Christian converts to Kerala to settle. Chaldea Syrians are Jewish Christians and came from Persia but their stock is Jewish.

The real Jewish ‘Jewish’ migrated to Kerala from Spain fleeing from Inquisition and from Baghdad and other places only after the 14th century. They were anyway European and of mid Esatern pure stock and kept themselves pure throughout and had settled in Chendamangalam and also ‘Saudi’ in Fort Cochin (before it became Fort Cochin while it was still with Chendamangalam Paliyam). When Fort Cochin area was given to teh Portugese by the Paliath Achan they persecuted the Jewish living in Saudi and all of them ran to the mattancherry palace of teh King of Cochin looking for shelter and they were given a place to stay in and around the old palace area. (The Dutch later built teh mattancherry palace for teh King of Cochin). They also built a Synagogue there and this in my knowledge never ever entertained brown Jews to come and worshup there.

My Grand father very frankly told me that they were the offsprings of the union between Knai Thomman and the washerwoman and which is why the northies of the pure ‘Antioch” stock would not give their sons or daughters in marriage to them.

Lord’s disciple St. Thomas came to Kerala because he was ‘chosen by lot’ by other disciples to seek out and preach the gospel to the Jewish in India as part of an erroneously held theological conviction by the Lord’s disciples that gospel that the word of God was to be praeched only to the Jewish. Since the knowledge of the existence of the Jewish community in Cochin present from King Solomon’s time was common knowledge in Antioch it was natural that Thomas would come to Kerala in 52 AD via what is now known as Pakistan and then Knai Thomman would follow with his entourage later in 345 AD when persecuted. Knai Thomman came with a small party firts and went back to Antioch (with an intention) to bring with him bishops, deacons and 72 families, (money and manpower) and took over the humble christian assemblies planted by St. Thomas and made them into churches.

With that kind of mind set imported, is it not natural that the divisions flourish and debates continue even as of today..

Thanks for reading the article and your criticism. In the multi denominational politics of Thomasine Christians of Kerala, no one can satisfy each and every group. If you read the article, you can understand my arguments about the reasons for majority joining the Portuguese. I have tried my best to be impartial in the article.

I understand your motive. I feel this as a forum for unity of all Thomasine Christians. As all know, after the unfortunate division of our community, different colonial forces supported different factions and made different propaganda ridiculing the rival faction. Many of those stories are exaggerated. I do not think it is appropriate to propagate those stories again.

I have put a few reasons for majority of Saint Thomas Christians joined the Catholic Syrian group. We can have a healthy debate about that.

Your story of Kozhukkatta happened soon after the Synod of Diamper (AD 1599) when Arch Bishop Menesis visited churches. The Coonan Cross revolt was in AD 1653. The division and group rivalry began only after the arrival of Joseph Sebastiani in AD 1657 and the consecration of Palli Veettil Chandy Cathanaar as Bishop in AD 1663. Until the reconciliation efforts of Rome by the arrival of Joseph Sebastiani in AD 1657, the whole of the Saint Thomas Christians were united under the Arch Deacon. Even with the direct intervention of Rome for reconciliation, Kalloorkkadu Church was with the Arch Deacon until AD 1659 when the King of Purakkadu intervened and forced them to join the Portuguese side. After that, even in AD 1661, when Bishop Sebastiani visited Kalloorkkadu Church, people were forced to receive him by the King.

So, your argument that Champakkulam Kalloorkkadu Church joined Catholic fold because of the pamperings of Menesis by putting gold coins in Kozhukkatta in AD 1599 doesn’t make sense. This logic itself proves that your quoted proverb is another example of propaganda by the rival group.

You have to understand that after the division, both factions were supported by rival colonialists from Europe. Nobody can deny that. Anti Portuguese colonialists also tried their best to get a faction with them and pampered them. While Portuguese did atrocities to the Arch Deacon’s group, the rival European colonialists did the same to the Catholic Syrian group also. Who gave support for the Arch deacon to get Bishops from the Church of Antioch? Was it for helping the Saint Thomas Christians to protect their identity ? Who caused the further division of the Puthencoor community? If the anti Portuguese Colonialists were helping the Puthencoor, they would not have to loose the ancient liturgy and traditions. So, the story of Saint Thomas’ Christians and their division were actually the story of group rivalry of the European Colonialists. They induced us to propagate exaggerated stories against each other and kept us divided for their interests.

Now, if you have any difference in opinion about the arguments I have put in the article about majority joining the Catholic Syrian group, please share them here. We all can learn and understand more.

Fails to mention that, many joined the catholic group, due the attrocities commited by portuguese, and the pampering tactics….

Nothing about kozhukatta ( Arch Bishop Menezea distributed coins in kozhukatta, to induce people to join catholic church..

” Kuzhal undenkil kokkinne pidikkam, kozhukatta undenkil kalloorkadu pidikkam” … goes a proverb, about how the church of kalloorkadu joined catholic group …..:-)

What about the neumerous assasination attempts on Marthoma I and his suceessors ? No wonder why many choose to join the catholic fold…