鲍默《东方教会：亚述基督教图史》第十章：南印度的多马基督徒（中英文对照版）

The Thomas Christians

of South India X

The East Syrian community on the Malabar Coast

The first contact between the Thomas Christians of South India and the Church of the East occurred around 300, after which they were hierarchically integrated into the Iranian metropolitan see of Rew Ardashir in the early fifth century. [^1] Patriarch Ishoyahb III (in office 650–660) then elevated the India dioceses to the metropolitan see of India, directly under his authority, whose seat was in Angamali in the sixteenth century. [^2] As the copper documents from the eighth/ninth centuries show, the Thomas Christians were fully integrated into Indian society and enjoyed the protection of local princes. Their prosperity was based on their pepper plantations and the trade encouraged by the increasing significance of the port city of Quilon. Beginning in the ninth century Quilon was the most important port in south-western India and both Persian ships and Chinese junks put in there, which resulted in contact between the East Syrians of Quilon and those of Zaitun in China in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

King Alfred the Great of England (†899) sent to Mylapore around 885.3 Between 1291 and 1293 two prominent Europeans visited Quilon and Mylapore: first Bishop Montecorvino on his way to China, and then Marco Polo on his return trip to Venice. Montecorvino’s companion, the Franciscan missionary Nicholas of Pistoia, died

Thanks to the significance of Quilon and the purported apostle’s grave near Mylapore on the east coast of India, many Western European travellers came into contact with the Thomas Christians. Among the earliest was the Anglo- Saxon bishop Sigehelm of Sherbourne, whom

Nestorian fishermen in Kerala, southern India. Christian fishermen are proud of their religious affiliation for two reasons: first, Jesus Christ called his first earthly successor Peter, the ‘fisher of men’; 68 and, second, Christianity enables escape from the lower social classes of the caste system.

in Mylapore and was buried there in the East Syrian Church of St Thomas.4 When Pope John XXII resolved to carry out a mission to Iran and founded the diocese of Sultaniyeh in 1318, he sent the Dominican Jordanus Catalani to India. Around 1324 Jordanus visited the Nestorians of Thana, part of modern Mumbai (Bombay), and the nearby city of Sopara, where he boasted that he had converted ‘more than 10,000 schismatic infidels’.5 Even if Jordanus greatly exaggerated, his report indicates that there were still Nestorians in north-western India in the fourteenth century. When he returned to India the pope appointed him bishop of Quilon in 1329, and gave him a letter demanding that the leader of the Thomas Christians acknowledge the authority of Rome.6

A Christian worship service in Kerala, southern India.

Some twenty years after Jordanus, in 1348, the Franciscan bishop John of Marignolli (†1357) spent several months in Quilon. Regarding the Nestorians, he reported that they owned all the pepper plantations and held the public office of weights and measures; clearly, the privileges documented on the copper tablets were still in effect.7 Later, around 1430, the Venetian merchant Nicolo Conti (†1469) described the grave of Thomas in Mylapore.8 These reports, which also suggest the existence of Christian ministers and even kings, allowed for the development of the notion that the priest-king John could be found in South India. On the basis of these expectations, Vasco da Gama is said to have declared upon his arrival in Calicut (Kozhikode), ‘We have come seeking Christians and spices.’9 Da Gama was mistaken, however, when he took the Hindu Brahmans for Christians and their temples for churches. The Portuguese Pedro Alvares Cabral was the first to meet real Christians, which he did near Cochin in 1500. men’ to Patriarch Mar Shimun IV (in office 1437–1497) in northern Mesopotamia with a request for bishops. Two of the envoys reached their goal and were ordained as priests by the patriarch, whereupon he also consecrated two monks as bishops and gave them the names Thomas and John. All four reached Kerala. After a few years Bishop Thomas returned to Mesopotamia, whereupon Patriarch Elias V (in office 1502–1503) consecrated one monk as Metropolitan Yahballaha and two other monks as bishops James and George, who all returned to India in 1504. Because of their initiative, new churches were built and the grave of Thomas in Mylapore was restored. The letter goes on to report ‘that the king of the Christians of the West, the Franks, our brothers, sent to this

A Syrian letter from 1504 offers us a glimpse into the situation of the Thomas Christians at that time. It reports that the community included about 30,000 families – that is, 150,000 to 200,000 people. In 1490 they sent ‘three pious

country powerful ships, which reached the town of Calicut’.10 These ‘brothers with their mighty ships’ were Cabral and Vasco da Gama, who returned to South India in 1502. The Thomas Christians did not feel threatened by the militarily superior Portuguese; quite the opposite: they hoped for their protection in the face of the attacking Muslims. For this reason they sent a delegation to da Gama in November 1502 and placed themselves under the protection of the Portuguese crown. This alliance was very welcome to the Portuguese, since the Thomas Christians could provide over 25,000 soldiers in times of danger. The Muslim traders responded to this Christian alliance and to the encroachment by the Portuguese into their trade monopoly with the plundering of Quilon in 1505 and 1524.

A Christian portraying Jesus in a street parade in Kerala. Here Christianity is also expressed in the form of large processions with tens of thousands of participants.

The forced conversion of Nestori­ ans to Catholicism

During the first decades following the establish- ment of the Portuguese trading settlements relations with the Thomas Christians were quite harmonious, since the first Portuguese settlers were merchants rather than missionaries. Additionally, the Catholic priests did not know Syriac at first, so they did not notice the ‘Nestorian heresies’. The Thomas Christians could for a time retain their religious identity and their connection to the Church of the East under the leadership of their bishop James (†1552), who had come from Mesopotamia. The troubles began with the arrivals of Brother Alvaro Penteado in Goa in 1511, the Portuguese bishop João de Albuquerque in 1538 and the Jesuit Francis Xavier (†1552) in 1542. They despised both the Hindu heathens and the East Syrian Thomas Christians and began, with the help of the Portuguese civil authorities, to pressure the Nestorians to renounce their Eastern ideas of faith, adopt the Latin rite and acknowledge the authority of the pope. Since the Thomas Christians fiercely defended themselves against the Latinization of their Church and its rites, the Portuguese fleet, which controlled the sea lanes west of Kerala, tried to break the link to the Church of the East, in order to prevent the arrival of Nestorian bishops from Mesopotamia. The Nestorian bishop Mar Dinkha, who lived in Cranganore, feared for his life, or at least his freedom, and fled inland to Angamali in 1534.

At the same time, Catholic missionaries carried out well-targeted mass conversions among poor Indian fishermen, who belonged to the lower castes and hoped their acceptance of the Catholic faith would enable them to break free from the chains of the Indian caste system. The Catholic missionaries cleverly exploited the gap left open

by the Thomas Christians, who were associated with a higher caste and had never made an active missionary effort among the lower classes. Thus did the Catholics create a clergy parallel to the Nestorians. Simultaneously, the Inquisition, demanded by Francis Xavier, began its terrifying work in 1560.

The situation became still more complicated when part of the Mesopotamian Church of the East entered into union with Rome in 1553 under the leadership of John Sulaqa and established the rival patriarchate of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Sulaqa led it under the name of John VIII (†1555). Shortly before the Latin diocese of Goa was elevated to an archdiocese in 1558 the Chaldean patriarch John VIII, acting on the authority of a papal bull that had been granted to him, send the Chaldean bishops Mar Elias and Mar Joseph to Goa, where they arrived in 1555. While Mar Elias soon left India, the Portuguese authorities handed Mar Joseph over to the Inquisition, which twice sent him to Rome to clarify his orthodoxy. Only two years later the Nestorian patriarch Shimun VIII Dinkha (in office 1551–1558) dispatched Bishop Mar Abraham, who was at first able to elude the grasp of the watchful Portuguese. But he was arrested on account of the initiative of his Chaldean rival Mar Joseph and handed over to the Inquisition. In a genuine odyssey, he fled from his captivity in Mozambique to Mosul, whereupon he travelled voluntarily to Rome and pretended to have accepted the Catholic creed. Around 1565 he returned to South India, after the pope had divided the diocese of the Thomas Christians between Mar Joseph and him. After the second deportation of the Chaldean bishop Joseph, Mar Abraham publicly professed the East Syrian rite and fled to Angamali, where he died in office in 1597. Then, in accordance with East Syrian custom, Archdeacon George of the Cross led the Indian archdiocese of the Church of the East.11

The Orthodox Syrian Church of Nivanam, Kerala, was, according to tradition, one of the seven churches of India founded by the apostle Thomas in the year 52. The building standing today was erected in 1910. century there were three Christian hierarchies in India – the Nestorian, the Chaldean Catholic and the Roman Catholic – which operated beside and against one another. The Catholic archbishop of Goa, Alexis de Menezes, appointed in 1597, decided to ‘resolve’ the turbulent situation in the spirit of the Portuguese administration through the complete Latinization of the Thomas Christians. He behaved like a Crusader battling the infidels rather than a diplomat seeking compromise. Under pain of military force, dispossession and excommunication, he convened the Synod of Dyamper (Udayamperu) near Cochin, after he had ordained over one hundred priests in order to ensure himself a majority. During this one-week blitz-synod Menezes forced through 267 decrees, including, among others, the decisions of the Council of Ephesus and the condemnations of the Church Fathers Theodore, Diodore and Nestorius, as

Thus in the second half of the sixteenth

question marks.

With these events the last Nestorian metro- politan see ‘of the Exterior’ ceased to exist; the so-called Syrian Malabar Church was merely a daughter Church of Rome. Rome met East Syrian ideas and customs not with its own ideas and understanding but with brute force. Under Christian rule the Thomas Christians lost the level of freedom of belief and conscience they had enjoyed under the ‘heathen’ Hindus.12

The revolt of the Thomas Christians at the Cross of Koonan

Although the submission of the Thomas Christians to Rome at first appeared complete, it did not last long. The reckless Latinization of their Church, the installation of Latin bishops and the arrogant behaviour of the Jesuits offended the faithful. Around 1650 they elected as archdeacon Thomas Palakomatta (†1670), who prohibited the Jesuit missionaries from entering the East Syrian churches and at the same time asked the Nestorian, Jacobite and Coptic patriarchs to send a non-Latin bishop. The East Syrian patriarch Mar Elias VIII Shimun (in office 1617–1660) sent Bishop Mar Ahatallah to India, where the Portuguese arrested him and handed him over to the Inquisition in Goa. The unfortunate bishop died at the stake in 1653.13 The enraged Thomas Christians then gathered in Cochin at the Cross of Koonan and swore no longer to recognize papal authority and to expel the Jesuits. They decided that twelve priests should consecrate Archdeacon Thomas as the new bishop, which they did in the Church of Alangad. The overwhelming majority of the faithful supported the separation from Rome, which was made easier by the Dutch conquest of Quilon in 1661, Cranganore in 1662 and finally Cochin in 1663, since the Protestant Dutch expelled the Latin bishops, priests and mission- well as their own patriarch. The synod adopted the Latin liturgy, adapted the sacraments to the Latin model, acknowledged belief in purgatory and the characterization of Mary as Theotokos and instituted priestly celibacy, which meant that those East Syrian priests who wanted to stay in office had to divorce their wives. The synod then acknowledged the sole primacy of the pope, which removed India from the authority of the Chaldean Catholic patriarch and reduced the metropolitan see of Angamali to a suffragan diocese of Goa. Finally, all the manuscripts of the Thomas Christians were systematically collected and burned, which amounted to the cultural destruction of a 1300-year-old Christian tradition. Thus the only branch of the Church of the East to escape Tamerlane’s frenzy of destruction was annihilated by Europeans. This auto-da-fé is the primary reason the history of the Thomas Christians remains filled with

Presumably the oldest book preserved in Kerala is the Nomocanon, the book of monastic rules by Bar Hebraus (1226–1286). The colophon bears the date 1290. (Library of the Orthodox Syrian Church of St John in Pampakuda, Kerala, southern India.)

Fishing nets adopted from China and used by Christians in Cochin, Kerala, recall Kerala’s trade with China, which flourished until the fifteenth century. aries from their territories.

Dutch expelled the Portuguese soon thereafter, Bishop Joseph Sebastiani consecrated the native Alexander Palakomatta as bishop of the Catholic Syrian Malabar Church. But Palakomatta was a cousin of the rebellious Bishop Thomas.14 Although the majority of the Christians stood behind their Bishop Thomas, his position remained disputable on account of his irregular consecration by only priests, so he appealed again to the Coptic and the two Syrian patriarchs. This time the Syrian Orthodox bishop Mor Gregorius reached India in 1665, where he consecrated him again as Bishop Thomas I and introduced the Jacobite rite. That a Nestorian archdeacon was consecrated bishop by a Jacobite prelate indicates that the Thomas Christians were much less concerned with Christological questions than

The expulsion of the Portuguese saved Bishop Thomas from the flames of the Inquisition. Pope Alexander VII (in office 1655–1667) blamed the Jesuits for the debacle of the Oath of Koonan and sent in their place Carmelite monks led by Joseph Sebastiani. By means of threats and bribes, he succeeded in returning a minority of the Thomas Christians to the pale of the Catholic Church. Because Bishop Thomas refused to give up his office and acknowledge the authority of the pope, Bishop Sebastiani had Portuguese soldiers search for the obstinate cleric in order to hand him over to the Inquisition in Goa. When they threatened to arrest him in the Church of Mulamthuruty the endangered bishop traded clothing with a layman and escaped. Since the

with the defence of Syrian traditions and their antipathy towards the Latin Christians. metropolitan Mar Athanasius (in office 1843–1877) implemented far-reaching Anglican-inspired reforms, resulting in schism and the founding in 1888 of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar with its see at Tiruvalla. As his first acts, Mar Athanasius translated the liturgy from Syriac into the native language of Malayalam and abolished Masses for the dead, the use of incense and the invocation of saints and Mary. In the Mar Thoma Church belief in transubstantiation is also rejected, and the sacraments are limited to baptism, Eucharist and holy orders. Scripture is given a more prominent place, and the Eucharist is open to all Christians: ‘The Lord’s table is open to all, only Christ may turn someone away.’19 The Mar Thoma Church, which today includes ten bishops, a thousand priests and about 800,000 laypeople, features an unusual organization. While the bishops’ synod, presided over by the patriarch, is responsible for doctrine and dogma, an assembly of delegates from the faithful, called Sabha Prathinidhi Mandalam, oversees Church business. Each parish delegates one to five elected representatives, plus the vicar, and when there are two or more lay representatives they must include a woman. The Mandalam, which resembles a parliament, thus consists mostly of laity. In the process of making decisions, the bishops’ synod and the patriarch can either put a resolution of the delegates’ assembly into effect or reject it, in which case it will be treated again. If the Mandalam confirms its decision and the patriarch again vetoes it, he must dissolve it and call for new elections. Then the newly elected parliament finally resolves the disputed matter in its first session.20

Because of this consecration, there was a hierarchical and legitimate connection of part of the Thomas Christians to Antioch, which simultaneously implied the dissolution of the bond with the East Syrian patriarchate. This development laid the cornerstone for the mosaic of various Churches that exists in Kerala today, since there were then three parallel hierarchies: first, the Syrian Malankara Orthodox Church, which was dependent on Antioch; second, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, recognized by Rome but autonomous; and, third, the community of Latin Christians, which included the Hindus converted by European missionaries and the descendants of these converts.

The Oriental Christians of South India found no peace in the eighteenth century either. It seems that Syrian Malankar Christians, who rejected the West Syrian rite, appealed again to the Nestorian patriarch. In 1701 one Bishop Mar Simon reached Kerala, where the Catholic Inquisition arrested him and imprisoned him until his death.15 Seven years later the Nestorian bishop Mar Gabriel arrived; he oversaw the 22 Syrian Malankar parishes from his residence in Kottayam and died there in 1731.16 After Mar Gabriel’s death, the East Syrian patriarch sent Bishop John to Kerala in order to grant episcopal consecration to the native priest Thomas. But this did not occur, since the Hindu ruler of Cochin had him arrested on the instigation of the Catholics.17 A further crisis arose in 1774, when the Syrian Malankar bishop Mor Koorilose, whose consecration had not been properly carried out, founded the independent church of Thozhiyur. Later the massacres of Thomas Christians by Muslim and Hindu rulers severely tested the communities.18

At the beginning of the twentieth century a conflict in the leadership of the Syrian Orthodox Church led to a division in the Indian daughter Church that persists to this day. In 1912 the deposed patriarch of Antioch, Abd el-Massiah II, consecrated the first independent catholicos of South India, Mor Basilios Paulos I, while another

The arrival of Protestant missionaries, who built their first church in 1809, and Anglican priests led to another split. The Syrian Malankar

The Orthodox-Syrian bishop Mor Pachomios in front of his Cathedral of St Mary in Aluwa, Kerala, which, on account of an intra-Syrian- Orthodox legal dispute, has been closed by law since 1975. He wears the bulbous headdress typical of Miaphysite bishops. group of Syrian Orthodox Christians remained loyal to the legitimate patriarch of Antioch. Legal battles over Church property began immediately. In 1930 a minority of the autocephalous group under the mystic Mor Ivanios joined the Roman Catholic Church, from which emerged the Syro- Malankar Catholic Church. The reunification of the two Jacobite Churches, which succeeded in 1964, was short-lived, as eleven years later the patriarch in Antioch excommunicated Catholicos Mor Basilios Augin I and named as his replace- ment Mor Basilios Paulos II (†1996). Since then two catholicoi have competed in Kerala; the Church loyal to Antioch calls itself the Syrian Orthodox Church, and the autocephalous Church the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Together the two Churches number two to three million members. Unfortunately, the renewed schism of 1975 brought violence and further legal debates about the ownership of churches. In 1995 the High Court of India decided for the autocephalous Church, since there could be only one catholicos and one Church association in India. Because the court did not address the apportioning of churches in detail, there are, as the author observed in 2001, still many churches that have been closed since 1975; lack of maintenance threatens them with collapse.21 It is certainly no benefit to the image of Christianity in India that two long-established Churches cannot find a compromise and must instead call upon the civil authorities. It appears that a few dignitaries expend more energy before the court than before the altar. The dispute is all the more fallacious given that the liturgy in the two Churches is identical and the quarrel is only over property, titles and power.

The rebuilding of the

Church of the East in India

It is not without irony that one of the youngest ecclesiastical groups of South India is the successor to the oldest, the Nestorian Church. In 1856 unhappy members of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church appealed to the Chaldean patriarch Mar Joseph VI Audo (in office 1848–1878), who saw an opportunity to expand his jurisdiction to the Thomas Christians. Despite the fervent protest of the Vatican, he sent the patriarchal vicar Thomas Rokos in 1860 and Bishop Elias Mellus in 1874, who established a Chaldean hierarchy in the region of Trichur. Upon his return in 1882 the native priest Antonius Thondanatta (†1900) became his successor as metropolitan of the Chaldean Syrian Church of Trichur, under the name Mar Odisho. Because, however, the Chaldean patriarch had in the interim submitted again to Rome and could not name a successor for Mar Odisho, the leaderless

The Cathedral of St Mary in Trichur, built in 1814, is the see of the Indian metropolitan of the Church of the East. It is an outstanding example of Indian–Syrian church architecture. community of Trichur appealed to the Nestorian patriarch Mar Shimun XIX, who sent them the bishop and metropolitan Mar Timothy (1878– 1945) from Kurdistan in 1907.22 plotted with the British authorities against the regent and in the summer of 1927 brought about his deportation to India. After his death in 1945 the diocese remained vacant for seven years.23

But the small, now Nestorian community of Trichur found no peace, as their metropolitan became involved in the fight over hereditary succession to the patriarchate. When Patriarch Shimun XX Paulose died in 1920, the sister of the late patriarch, Surma, had her twelve-year- old nephew consecrated as Patriarch Mar Shimun XXI Eshai (in office 1920–1975) before Metropolitan Timothy, who was travelling from India, arrived in Baghdad. Since Timothy was the best-educated and most senior bishop of the church, those Assyrians who did not accept hereditary succession and the election of a child as their leader rallied around him. As a compro- mise Timothy was appointed regent. But Lady Surma (†1975), who did not want to surrender the power of Church leadership to the regent,

The new bishop, Mar Thoma Darmo (†1969) was likewise a determined opponent of hereditary succession, which brought him into conflict with Patriarch Mar Shimun XXI Eshai. The conflict broke out openly when Mar Shimun instituted reforms without any corresponding synodal resolution. First Mar Shimun suspended the rebellious metropolitan Mar Thoma Darmo in 1964. In 1968 Mar Thoma Darmo consecrated three priests as bishops and metropolitans, whereupon these newly appointed bishops named him rival patriarch of the Ancient Church of the East a week later; Mar Shimun, however, declared them deposed. One of the three new bishops was George Mooken from Trichur, born in 1940, who took the name Mar Aprem and was appointed metropolitan of

Metropolitan of the Church of the East of India, Mar Timothy II, who died on 7 August 2001. Since a bishop, like an apostle, remains in office spiritually after his death, he is placed immediately after his death in full regalia upon his Episcopal throne, so that he can continue to bless the faithful from whom he has taken his leave.

A Prathana-gathering of charismatic Christians in Cochin, southern India. Each person venerates the divine in others.

India. The new schism was especially painful in the East Syrian communities of India, as Mar Shimun XXI elevated Mar Timothy (1920–2001) to metropolitan of India for the Church of the East in 1971. There were now two Nestorian metropolitans in the small diocese. numerous ecumenical working groups and academic conferences. In 2016 the East Syrian Church of India includes 30,000 members, two additional bishops, 48 priests, 27 deacons, three deaconesses and three nuns.

The East Syrian and both West Syrian Churches have maintained their Christian-Oriental character; the faithful really are ‘Hindus in their culture and Christians in their faith and their Syrian rite’.25 Many ritual activities, such as, for instance, the offering of lights, floral garlands or fruit, may be observed both in churches and Hindu temples. An ancient peculiarity of the Syrian Churches is their charismatic character, which is expressed in the religious gatherings called Prathana. There a household or up to several hundred people come together to offer prayers, which are sung in time with rhythmic clapping. In between there are moments of meditative silence, which are interrupted by

The abolition of patriarchal hereditary succession in 1976 opened the way to reconcil- iation. Although power conflicts have prevented to this day a universal reunification of the two Nestorian Churches, reunion was accomplished in India in 1995. The metropolitan see is again entirely under the patriarch of the Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV (in office since 1976). While Mar Aprem oversees the business of the Church, Mar Timothy, who died in 2001, led the bishops’ conferences.24 This reconciliation demonstrates that schisms may also be resolved without the involvement of civil courts. The current metropolitan, Mar Aprem, is very active in

Dr Dr Mar Aprem, Metropolitan of the Church of the East of India, during a worship service in the Church of Mar Narsai, Trichur, southern India. isolated prayers offered aloud. The gathering concludes, like Sunday worship on special feast days, with a shared meal, the agape of the early Church.26 the awareness that, as the ancient copper plates attest, this community once belonged to a higher caste. In fact the Thomas Christians belong to the middle and upper class of Kerala, while Catholics and Protestants are found more in the lower social classes. Both Christianity and Islam offer their adherents from the lower castes, the so-called ‘untouchables’, the only way out of the degrading restrictions of the Indian caste system. However, such converts then lose civil allowances that poor Hindus receive and risk becoming the targets of violent Hindu fundamentalists.

Among the Syrian Thomas Christians, marriages usually take place within the com- munity. In the case of a mixed marriage, a regulation exists between the East Syrian Church and the Catholics that either an East Syrian or a Catholic pastor can legitimately bless the marriage. Since no such agreement exists with the West Syrians, a mixed marriage can lead to the excommunication of the West Syrian spouse. In order to spare the West Syrian spouse this painful experience, the Nestorian Church permits the East Syrian spouse-to-be to convert to one of the two West Syrian Churches on the day of the wedding, provided he or she returns to the ancestral Church the following day. The restriction to intra-Church marriages also reflects

The relationship of the Thomas Christians to a milder form of the caste concept can also be seen in the centuries-old priestly traditions within the same families and in the extraordinary respect the priests enjoy within the local community. The same respect is enjoyed by the wife of the priest, who generally must marry before ordination to the diaconate. A few priests live celibately, and

The Catholic St George Church is one of the innumerable churches of Kottayam, which is nicknamed ‘Rome of the Mar Thomas Christians’. from these the bishops are chosen.

Ricci (1552–1610) in China and Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656) in India to adapt the external forms of Christianity to the cultural environment were disavowed by Rome. In this context, the American Protestant missionary Justin Perkins, who went to the Nestorians of Urmiah in 1834 and lived there for 36 years, proved to be more discerning: ‘The oriental [Christian] house must be built of oriental material and adapted to the oriental environment, not the Western.’27

The example of the Thomas Christians of South India shows that Christianity can only successfully expand and maintain itself in Asian lands with strong, deeply rooted native religions if it creates a cultural synthesis with its host country. Although the c.7.5 million Christians make up about 23 per cent of the overall population of Kerala, in the rest of India they constitute only 1.6 per cent. From the Christian standpoint it is regrettable that the attempts undertaken by the far-sighted Jesuits Matteo