CHRISTIANS OF SAINT THOMAS, the name of a sect of Christians on the coast of Malabar. in southern India, to which region the apostle Saint Thomas is said (by a tradition that has lit tle to justify it) to have carried the gospel. The facts of their history are not well made out. They originally belonged probably to a body of Christians who, in the year 499, united to form a Syrian and Chaldaic Church in eastern Asia, and who were adherents of the doctrines taught by the heretic Nestorius. At an early date (7th century) the Persian Church had adopted the name of Christians of Saint Thomas, and the Christians of Malabar received bishops from Persia. Latterly the Christians of Saint Thomas gained the position of a military caste which locally had considerable power. When the Portuguese gained a position in Malabar these Christians were forced to join the Roman Catholic Church (1599). But in 1653 many of them renounced this union, and having in 1665 received a bishop sent by the patriarch of An tioch, they have since belonged to the Jacobite body of Eastern Christians. The Church is now
under seven bishops with a patriarch at the head; and the adherents number about 300,000. They give communion in both kinds, and in some other matters differ from the Roman Catholic Church. They allow the consecration of a married layman or deacon to the office of priest. Their churches contain no symbols or pictures except the cross. Their liturgy is sim ilar to the Syrian, and the Syrian language is used in it. At present they are, under the British government, free from any ecclesiastical restraint, and form among themselves a kind of spiritual republic, in which the priests and elders administer justice, using excommunication as `a means of punishment. Consult 'The Indian Empire,) by Sir W. W. Hunter.