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Christianity came to India in 52 AD, long before it travelled to many of the west European Christian countries. The religion is believed to have been introduced by St. Thomas, a carpenter by profession and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Although it reached in the first century, the community confined itself largely to India's southern coastal areas, mainly in Kerala, for almost 1,500 years.

One of my former co-workers, who just left the company, was a Christian from Kerala in far southern India. Kerala appears to be a very beautiful area. The pictures he showed me from various trips or family events are gorgeous.

He described their church as Assyrian. He was incredibly knowledgable about Christian communities all through Central Asia, particularly Iraq, as they are all part of the same tradition. I learned lots of interesting things about this church which I had never heard of before first discussing it with him about 4 years ago.

What amazed me, given his knowledge about the church's history and current standing, even outside of India, was his lack of historic knowledge about India itself. For example, he knew the term Mogul from it's western usage (a very wealthy or powerful businessman) but was unaware of the terms origin as it related to the Moslem occupation of India.

After the Tsunami a year ago there was some coverage of the area, but I don't think they had severe damage. There is one story of the Santhome Cathedral, site of St. Thomas tomb, having been miraculously spared damage from the Tsunami that even secular skeptics will grant has some basis in fact, even if they do discount any miraculous intervention. That's the first time I'd ever seen any mention of this Christian history in India in the press.

Even when the Muslims occupied India, they were largely concentrated in the north, whereas Kerala is about 2000 miles south of those lands. Even their outposts were a generous distance away from Kerala. But Kerala had a lot of contact with Arab, Portuguese and Jewish traders.

About the Tsunami having unaffected the Santhome Cathedral, I haven't actually heard about it. But I do know that the mosques in Aceh, Indonesia were spared, even when the houses surrounding them were totally wiped out, because of the free passage of the water through its relatively empty interiors. Other such 'roomy' buildings survived for the same reason. This could perhaps also explain the survival of the cathedral you mentioned.

"For example, he knew the term Mogul from it's western usage (a very wealthy or powerful businessman) but was unaware of the terms origin as it related to the Moslem occupation of India."

The result of 50+ years of socialist indoctrination in Indian schools. Any mention of muslim atrocities was disallowed....we have been suffering our homegrown brand of liberalism for decades now.

Merry Christmas

was his lack of historic knowledge about India itself.

well, India is an amalgamation of many nations -- with their own histories. There is an overwhelming sense of being Indian, like there was an overwhelming sense of being part of Christendom in the 10th century in Europe, however, each state has it's own language, traditions and even culture.

For instance, Kerala was never conquered by the Moghuls, neither was Tamil Nadu and both have historic kingdoms going back millenia. Then, in the north east they have their own traditions, in Maharashtra, different empires that opposed the Moghul and Sikh.

In fact, many wonder how the British could have conquered India -- the reason was, that to many regions, like to the Tamils, there was no real difference between an Invasion by Europeans or Marathas or Punjabis or Moghuls -- all were aliens.

that being said, India is now has a strong sense of nationhood, with local flavors.