Indian Christianity

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA : M. M. NINAN
The Church Missionary Atlas published 1879 summarizes their perception as follows page 98
"When Vasco de Gama, the great Portuguese navigator reached India by sea round the Cape in 1498,
he was received with open arms by the Christians of Malabar; but the connexion with Portugal brought
sad trouble upon them. Just century later, the Church, which had successfully resisted the persuasions
of the Jesuits, became subject to the jurisdiction of the Pope; the work of subjugation being effected,
partly by force and partly by fraus, by Alexius Menezes, Archbishop of Goa. All married priests were
deposed; the doctrine of transubstantiation and the worship of Virgin were enforced; the Inquisition was
established; and the worship of the Virgin were enforced; was burnt alive at Goa as a heretic. In 1661,
however, the ports of Quilon and Cochin were captured by the Dutch, who expelled all the Romish
priests, and thus made way for another Syrian Metropolitan, who arrived from Antioch in 1665, and was
welcomed as a liberator by the majority of the Christians. The Malabar Church has from that time been
free from Papal domination, but has acknowledged the supremacy of the Jacobite Partiarch. Many,
however, remained in connexion with the Church of Rome, and became the progenitors of the numerous
body of Romanist now in the country."
Angamaly Padiyola
The difficulties experienced by the St. Thomas Christians of Catholic persuation under the foreign
missionaries resulted in a number of protest meetings in Angamali and other places. In one such major
convention held in 1778 it was decided to send a delegation to Rome, directly to the Pope. Two Priests
Fr. Joseph Kariattil and Fr. Thomas Paremmakal were sent to Pope to get an Archbishop to the See of
Kodungalloor. Kariattil was consecrated as the Archbishop of Kodungalloor in 1782 at Lisbon, but on his
127