The Church in India (52-2026)

The tradition of the Apostle in India

Indian tradition holds that Saint Thomas the Apostle arrived on the Malabar coast in 52, founded Christian communities in present-day Kerala, and was martyred at Mylapore, near Chennai. The historian must distinguish two levels: the apostolic tradition as a living ecclesial memory, and the later documentary attestations. But it would be wrong to treat this tradition as a Portuguese invention: it predates the arrival of the Europeans and has structured Nasrani identity for centuries.

The New Testament does not recount the eastern mission of Thomas. Yet it gives the Apostle a particular spiritual profile: the one who explicitly confesses the divinity of the risen Christ.

"My Lord and my God!" — Saint Thomas the Apostle, John 20:28^[6]

In the memory of Kerala, this confession becomes the seal of a Church born of apostolicity and not of colonialism. John Paul II explicitly takes up this reading at Cochin: the Christians of Kerala have before them "the example of Saint Thomas", who overcomes his difficulties and professes Christ as Lord and God^[7].

The first ancient attestations

The first historical difficulty lies in the relative silence of the ancient Indian sources. The Saint Thomas Christians possess above all an oral tradition, chants, liturgical usages, stone crosses and external testimonies. The Catholic Encyclopedia already noted that the interest of this community comes first from its "ancient descent" and cites Theophilus the Indian, in the fourth century, then Cosmas Indicopleustes, in the sixth century, as witnesses of a Christian presence on the Indian Ocean routes^[8].

Cosmas Indicopleustes, an Alexandrian merchant turned monk, wrote around 550 in his Christian Topography. In Book III, he mentions Christians with clergy and faithful at Taprobane (Sri Lanka), at Male on the Malabar coast, where pepper grows, and at Kalliana, with a bishop appointed from Persia. Even if the exact locations are debated, the testimony confirms the existence of an organised Eastern Christianity on the sea routes between Persia, Sri Lanka and the western coast of India^[9].

A Syriac Church, not a Latin one

Before the sixteenth century, the Saint Thomas Christians were not Latin. Their liturgy belonged to the East Syriac tradition; their bishops regularly came from Mesopotamia; their local head bore the title of Archdeacon of India^[10]. They then belonged to the Church of the East, not to Roman communion. This Eastern identity is still honoured in Rome: in 1964, in the Syriac liturgy celebrated at Bombay, Paul VI saluted an ancient tradition whose ceremonies and language showed that it had taken deep root in the soil of India^[11].

This situation explains two seemingly contradictory facts. On the one hand, the Nasrani — the Saint Thomas Christians — first welcomed the Portuguese as brothers in faith in Christ, come from the ancient see of Rome. On the other, they resisted strongly when the Latin presence threatened their books, their usages, their titles and their proper government. The Indian drama is therefore not the encounter of non-Christian Indian populations with Christian Europeans: it is the encounter, at times fraternal and at times violent, of two apostolic Christianities of different culture.

Vasco da Gama and the turning point of 1498

The arrival of Vasco da Gama at Calicut in 1498 opened a new era. Portugal came not only to trade; it arrived with the Padroado (the "patronage": Rome entrusted the Portuguese crown with the charge of missions and appointments in the territories of its empire). Goa, conquered in 1510, rapidly became the political, commercial and ecclesiastical centre of Portuguese Asia.

This phase bore real fruit: evangelisation of new populations, creation of schools, printing presses, colleges, formation of clergy, spread of catechesis. But it also introduced a lasting temptation: confusing catholicity with westernisation. The Church in India would constantly have to discern what belongs to the apostolic faith, what belongs to Portuguese culture, and what belongs to local practices incompatible with the Gospel.

Saint Francis Xavier at Goa and on the Fishery Coast

Saint Francis Xavier arrived at Goa on 6 May 1542. He did not found Indian Christianity: he joined a land where the Saint Thomas Christians had already existed for centuries. But he gave the Latin Church in India an immense missionary impetus. John Paul II recalled in 1986 that the Church of Kerala is "particularly indebted to Saint Francis Xavier", who made his first Indian stay there, from 1542 to 1545^[12].

Xavier devoted himself above all to poor populations and to the fishing communities of the Fishery Coast, notably the Paravars, converted en masse in a context where Portuguese protection against local pressures also played a political role. His mission remains exemplary in its zeal, its mobility and its capacity to catechise simply. Yet it shows one limit of the first missionary age: Christianity progressed quickly among popular groups, but struggled to reach the Brahmin elites and the upper castes, who too often identified the faith with the Portuguese world.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." — Jesus Christ, Matthew 28:19^[13]

Goa: missionary light and shadowed zone

Goa became one of the great Catholic centres of Asia: Jesuit colleges, cathedral, religious orders, printing press, ecclesiastical tribunals. The body of Saint Francis Xavier, kept in the Basilica of Bom Jesus, still draws crowds of pilgrims today. But Goan history also bears a shadowed zone: religious coercion, the Goa Inquisition and certain policies of pressure on converts or local populations.

A Catholic article must hold these two realities together. On the one hand, the Church gave India saints, schools, hospitals, a massive charitable presence. On the other, methods tied to the colonial state sometimes wounded the very freedom the Gospel presupposes. The Catholic balance sheet is not to deny the abuses, but to distinguish the Gospel from its political instrumentalisations.

1599: latinising in order to correct

The Synod of Diamper was held from 20 to 26 June 1599 at Udayamperoor, under the authority of Aleixo de Menezes, Latin Archbishop of Goa. Its official aim was to correct the errors attributed to the Syriac books and to attach the Saint Thomas Christians firmly to Rome. The New Catholic Encyclopedia reports that 153 priests and 660 lay representatives took part, and that all signed the decrees and the Catholic profession of faith^[14].

Two caricatures must be avoided. Diamper was not simply an anti-Eastern persecution, since the synod affirmed the Catholic faith against real or supposed Nestorian formulations and sought union with Rome. But neither was it a mere peaceful reform: it imposed a heavy latinisation, corrected or suppressed books, reduced the autonomy of an ancient Eastern Church and created deep resentment.

1653: the Coonan Cross Oath

The crisis broke out on 3 January 1653 with the Coonan Cross Oath at Mattancherry. A large part of the Saint Thomas Christians refused to submit further to the Portuguese authorities and swore no longer to accept their domination. The policy of latinisation thus provoked the rupture of part of the apostolic Church in 1653, which then entered into communion with the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch^[15]; the return to full Catholic communion of a Malankara branch, under the impetus of Mar Ivanios in 1930, is recalled by John Paul II himself^[16].

This rupture explains the present confessional map of Kerala: one part stayed in or returned to Catholic communion, giving the Syro-Malabar Church; another passed into the West Syriac tradition, from which would emerge several Malankara Churches — Orthodox, Jacobite, Mar Thoma — and, later, the Syro-Malankara Catholic branch returned to Rome.

Two Indian Eastern Catholic Churches

Catholic India thus possesses a rare richness: it has not only Latin dioceses, but two Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris (autonomous, of their own law). The Syro-Malabar Church, of East Syriac tradition, is the largest Catholic community directly descended from the Saint Thomas Christians. The Syro-Malankara Church, of West Syriac tradition, was born of the return to Catholic communion of part of the Malankara branch under the impetus of Mar Ivanios in 1930.

These two Churches are two ancient, distinct and complementary forms of Christianity, rooted in Indian soil and adapted to the Indian way of life — in the words Paul VI applied in 1964 to India's Syriac tradition, deeply rooted in the country's soil^[17]. This ecclesiology gives the key to a true Indian catholicity: unity with Rome does not require Latin uniformity; it requires the same faith, the same sacraments and communion with Peter, in legitimate liturgical forms.

The missionary problem of caste

India posed the missionaries a problem known in this form neither in Europe nor in Latin America: the caste society. The first Portuguese missionaries, identified with converted lower castes and with colonial power, struggled to reach the Brahmins. Roberto de Nobili, an Italian Jesuit who arrived at Goa on 20 May 1605 and was then sent to Madurai in November 1606, sought another way.

The Catholic Encyclopedia reports that he rapidly mastered Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit; he adopted an ascetic way of life close to that of Indian renouncers in order to speak to the Brahmins without asking them to become Portuguese^[18]. He composed catechisms, treatises and prayers in Indian languages, and sought to show that Christianity is not a foreign caste religion but the universal truth fulfilling human expectations.

Inculturation or compromise?

The Nobili question remains delicate. Certain usages he permitted — cord, forehead mark, ablutions, social signs — would be accused of camouflaging Hindu religious practices. The Malabar rites thus sparked a controversy comparable, though distinct, to that of the Chinese rites. The underlying question is simple: what is civil, cultural, socially unavoidable? What is religious, superstitious or contrary to baptismal equality?

A balanced Catholic discernment recognises Nobili's genius without idealising all his decisions. He understood a fundamental missionary truth: to evangelise is not to export Europe. But neither can the Gospel spiritually consecrate a system that ranks persons by birth. True inculturation purifies culture by assuming it; it does not sacralise its injustices.

"The Church in India must be the servant of reconciliation: the servant of the reconciliation of individuals among themselves, helping them to overcome the divisions which wound the human heart, and to overturn the barriers which separate men and lead to despair." — Saint John Paul II, Cochin, 7 February 1986^[19]

A stable Christian minority, perhaps undercounted

The 2011 Indian census gives 27.8 million Christians, or 2.3% of the total population^[20]. Pew stresses that the Christian share has stayed between 2 and 3% at every census since 1951, while noting a possible undercount: Dalit Christians may avoid declaring themselves Christian so as not to lose certain reservations linked to Scheduled Caste status^[21].

Catholics represent about 23 million faithful according to the 2023 data of the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae — that is, the largest Christian Church in the country^[22]. Their distribution is very uneven: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, the tribal zones of the Centre-East and the North-Eastern states form very different hearths.

Three rites, one episcopal body

Catholic India is structured into 174 circumscriptions: 132 Latin, 31 Syro-Malabar and 11 Syro-Malankara according to the unofficial summary of the Indian Catholic portal, compiled from current diocesan data (consulted on 4 October 2026; subject to change)^[23]. This coexistence sometimes creates complex pastoral questions, notably in the internal diaspora: a Syro-Malabar faithful living in Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore does not cease to belong to his Eastern Church.

Education, healthcare and charity

The Catholic social presence far exceeds its demographic weight. Indian Catholic statistics record nearly 4 million pupils in primary schools, 4.18 million in secondary, 625,230 students in higher education, 753 hospitals and 1,229 homes for the elderly, disabled or infirm^[25]. John Paul II already noted in 1986 that the Church of Kerala bore luminous witness through its educational, medical, social, developmental and charitable services^[26].

The most universally known figure of this service is Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Born in Skopje, she entered the Sisters of Loreto, arrived in India in 1929, and founded the Missionaries of Charity at Calcutta in 1950. Her canonisation in 2016 does not turn Catholic India into a legend without critics; it recalls above all that the Catholic mission is judged ultimately by concrete charity towards the poorest.

Hindu nationalism and permanent suspicion

Since the rise of contemporary Hindu nationalism, the Church in India has lived under recurring suspicion: education, care, aid to the poor and conversions are often presented by its adversaries as means of manipulation. Several Indian states possess so-called anti-conversion laws, which regulate or criminalise conversions deemed fraudulent, forced or obtained by inducement.

The difficulty is that these laws, under the pretext of protecting freedom, can be used against religious freedom itself. The American federal commission USCIRF writes on its country page that the Indian government "tolerates and perpetrates widespread harassment and violence" against religious minorities, and cites state anti-conversion laws among the discriminatory measures^[27].

Kandhamal, Manipur and the vulnerability of Christians

The violence in Kandhamal in Odisha in 2008 and in Manipur from 2023 onwards made the vulnerability of Christians visible, especially when they belong to tribal or socially weak groups. The causes of this violence are often mixed: ethnic identity, land, local politics, religious propaganda, accusations of conversion. But for the Christian victims, the result is concrete: burnt churches, displaced villages, threatened families, accused priests and pastors^[28].

A Catholic article must neither blacken the whole of India nor minimise these tragedies. India is an immense, religious, hospitable civilisation, marked by an authentic search for God; it is also crossed by a political project that tends to define Indianness by Hinduness. The Church's mission is to remain Indian without becoming Hindu, Catholic without becoming colonial, charitable without renouncing the right to proclaim Christ.

Mission as reconciliation

John Paul II's great word at Cochin remains one of the best syntheses of the Catholic vocation in India: the Church must be a servant of reconciliation. Reconciliation between divided Christians, between Catholic rites, between castes, between religions, between poor and powerful, between apostolic memory and Indian modernity.

"We acknowledge our baptismal unity with all our Christian brethren in the faith of Christ, and we proclaim our solidarity with our Hindu and Muslim brothers and sisters, and the followers of other religious traditions, whose presence expresses a shared resolve to work for a world built on truth, justice and peace for all." — Saint John Paul II, Cochin, 7 February 1986^[29]

This is not relativism. The Church does not renounce proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord. But she refuses to do so as a foreign power. India obliges the Church to live a demanding catholicity: one faith, multiple rites, visible charity, a free missionary word, the patience of a minority.

• Hinduism — Understanding the majority religious framework in which the Church in India lives.
• Catholic missions in Asia — Overview of Asian missions, from Thomas to Korea.
• The Church in Korea — Another Asian Church born in exceptional conditions.
• The Church in Vietnam — Martyrs, missions and living Catholicism under political pressure.
• The Church in the Middle East — The Syriac world and the Eastern roots of Christianity.