History & overview · every faith gets one
Saint Thomas's Indians, with a catholicos of their own since 1912.
The autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church of Kerala, which traces itself to the apostle Thomas, threw off Portuguese jurisdiction at the Coonan Cross in 1653, and established its own Catholicate of the East at Niranam in 1912. Its 1934 constitution has been fought over in Indian courts for ninety years and upheld by the Supreme Court repeatedly.
The founding
The Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala were Latinised by force at the Synod of Diamper in 1599 and revolted in 1653, tying a rope to a stone cross at Mattancherry and swearing not to submit to the Portuguese. The party that turned to Antioch later split again over how much authority the patriarch held in India; in September 1912 Patriarch Abdul Messiah consecrated a Catholicos of the East at Niranam, and that line is this church.
Its founding is bound to Thomas the Apostle, by the church's own account; the Catholicate re-established in 1912 — 1912 CE.
What it holds
Reality. Created and hallowed; Kerala's soil included, which is why the graves of its saints are pilgrimage sites..
The divine. One God in three persons; the incarnate Word in one united nature, confessed in the West Syriac tradition..
Death and after. Resurrection and judgment; the dead are prayed for by name and the tombs of holy bishops are visited..