The Early Church In India
Until the 16th century when the Portuguese, followed by the British, came to India with ambitions of religious as well as colonial expansion, there was only one undivided church in India, mainly in Kerela. It grew out of the original 7 churches raised by St Thomas in Kerela. These were located at Maliankara, Palayur,north Paravur, Gokamangalam, Niranam, Chayal and Kollam.Of the same pattern adopted by the other Apostels, each local church was self-administered ,guided by a group of presbyters and presided over by an elder priest and bishop. The early church in India remained at peace, treasuring the same ethnic and cultural characteristics of the local community. Its members enjoyed the goodwill of the other religious communities as well as the political support of the Hindu rulers. The Thomas Christians welcomed missionaries and migrants from west Asian churches, some of whom sought to escape persecution in their own countries. The language of worship in the early centuries must have been the local language mingled with east Syriac, received through the church of the east, in the context outlined below. Its history is happily intertwined, with that of the smaller Indian Church