Indian Christianity is older than most European Christianity and is routinely described as though it arrived with the Portuguese. The St Thomas Christians of Kerala hold that the apostle landed on the Malabar coast in 52 CE, founded seven churches, and was killed at Mylapore. The tradition cannot be verified and cannot be dismissed: the trade routes were open, there were established Jewish communities in Kerala for him to preach to, and the community was demonstrably ancient, Syriac-speaking, and in communion with the Church of the East long before any European arrived. What happened when Europeans did arrive is the ugly part. The Portuguese, finding Christians who did not answer to Rome, imposed Latin practice at the Synod of Diamper in 1599 and burned Syriac manuscripts; in 1653 the community swore the Coonan Cross Oath against Portuguese authority, and the splits from that day produced the seven or eight distinct St Thomas churches — Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, Orthodox, Jacobite, Mar Thoma and others — that still divide Kerala.