Yeah, the drive is on to raise the money to do the conservation/restoration work, and someone there thinks the way to do that is through tourism. I edited out most of those allusions.
Makes sense, tks for clarifying.
Now I’m fascinated by Christianity in India...
This one, for example: Youtube vid titled, “girls dancing in semi Christmas event in RCM church donakonda|Steven|” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12BIYbM2EJY
There’s plenty of evidence beyond the 3rd century legendary writings that St. Thomas the Apostle evangelized in the sub-continent. Makes perfect sense that he followed Roman and Jewish trade routes/ networks. While he would have been targeting Jews for conversion, he obviously got further than that, as, per legend, he was martyred by angry Hindu priests on the East coast. We know he converted Hindus in Kerala, on the southwest coast, so he was likely pushing to the east when he was killed. In the 3rd century, East Syrians (Jewish Christians) arrived to Kerala and were granted trading rights by a local king.
There was a bit of mixing of Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim practices in Indian Christianity, as we see from that YouTube video. Muslims protected St. Thomas’ tomb up through the arrival of the Portuguese, who built a church on the site.
One of my favorite stories of De Gama’s first voyage to the east coast of Africa is when he met Hindus there who responded to his saying “Christ” with mantras of “Krishna,” causing a bit of confusion between the parties.