While preparing for his return from India, Pedro Alvarez Cabral was approached by an Indian with a strange request. “I am Joseph of Cranganoor, a merchant by profession,” he told Cabral, “Please take me to your land.” The Portuguese captain came to know that he was a Kerala Christian wanting to travel to the holy land. Joseph’s destination was not the Vatican or Jerusalem but Edessa in Syria, the sacred centre of the Suriyani Church. Joseph, probably unaware of the new sea route discovered by Vasco Da Gama, might have thought of getting a free ride to Hormuz, a major port on the earlier route. The Portuguese were aware of Christians’ existence in Kerala through the writings of travellers and the legend of St Thomas and Prester John.
Walking on the streets of Kozhikode, the Portuguese sailors who landed in Kerala a few days back were confronted by an Alexandrian Jewish merchant who asked them, “Devil take you. What the hell are you doing here?” The Portuguese, perhaps trained by their captain Vasco Da Gama, had their answer ready: “We came looking for spices and Christians.” Soon they found that Arab merchants hoarded spices in vaults. They controlled the Samutiri, the local ruler. Most of the Christians resided in the southern region of the new-found land. When Cabral went to Kochi to “discover it”, some Christians showed up to discuss the spice business with the pale-looking new sailors in colourful dresses. The Portuguese weren’t convinced by their Christian credentials. The Portuguese travel record states: “In this country [gods own country], there are many Christians converted by St Thomas, whose apostolic life their priests follow with great devotion and strictness. They have churches where there is only the cross, and they celebrate mass with unleavened bread and wine made from raisins and water, as nothing else is available to them. All Christians go with their hair uncut and beard unshaved”. Indeed, the Kerala Christians or Suriyani [Syrian] Christians of the pre-colonial period had no similarity to the European Christians. First, they believed that nobody could be converted to Christianity as to be Christian, you have to be born to Christian parents, a practice followed even now.
It is for sure that though the Portuguese were happy to see Christians in India, they were least pleased to realise that these Christians believed in what the Roman Church considered heresy. For the Portuguese, the true Christian accepted a true incarnation of Christ, the term “theotokos” for the Virgin Mother, but Suriyani Christians had no idea about this. These “self-claimed” Christians of Kerala did not use the Roman doctrine of the mass and had never heard of the Vatican or the Pope, let alone accepting the Pontifical authority. Their wedding ceremony resembled the Hindu, and churches looked like temples. Priests were happily married and used Suriyani [Aramaic] language for their services. Confused with these bearded characters who called themselves Christian, the Portuguese tried to convert them to Christianity again!
The legend of St. Thomas maintains that the Apostle landed near Musiris in 52 CE, converted a few families, and established seven churches. To quote Nicol Macnicol, “If it were possible to accept as historical the legend that is recorded in the apocryphal Acts of Judas Thomas (dated by Harnack in the 3rd Century CE), the Christian religion was first preached in India by the Apostle Thomas about 50 CE. Similarly, the Tradition preserved by the Syrian Christian Church in Travancore claims St. Thomas as its founder and dates arrival in India in the year 52 CE”. When one considers the trade route between East and West that might have passed through Jerusalem, an Apostle or Evangelist could have travelled East. St Jerome [342-420 CE] observes, “The Son of God was present to all places, with Thomas in India, Peter in Rome, Paul in Illyria...”
Another literary reference from Britain points to the acceptance of St. Thomas as the Apostle of India. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reads thus. “The Year 883, in the same year Singhelm and Athelstan conveyed to Rome the alms, which the King [King Alfred] had vowed to send hither, and also to India to St Thomas and St Bartholomew, when they sat down against the [Danish] army at London: and there, God be thanked, their prayer was very successful after that vow”. Andrian Fortescue provides us with further information about these alms as, “He [King Alfred] sent Singhelm, the Bishop of Shireburn with gifts. Singhelm came to Rome and then went on to the Malabar Coast. He made his offerings here and brought back from his long journey jewels and spices; strange to see an English Bishop in India in 883!!”
It is still a mystery whether the Apostle Thomas himself or the descendants of the Church he established in Edessa had come to India. Another tradition proposes that 400 Christians belonging to seven clans from Baghdad, Nineveh and Jerusalem migrated to Kerala in 345 CE to escape the persecution of the Sassanid Emperor of Persia. “A merchant called Thomas Cannaneo or Thomas of Jerusalem drew the attention of the Edessan Church to this neglected outpost and caused to succour to be sent to it in the year 345”. In 522 CE an Alexandrian Monk, namely Cosmas Indicopleustes mentions a Christian Church in the port town of Kollam [Kalliana according to Cosmas ] in south Kerala. He also put on the record a Christian Bishop consecrated in Persia. Interestingly he is the first traveller who refers to the Suriyani Christians of Kerala.
Joseph of Cranganore was one among these Suriyani Christians who approached Cabral and travelled with him to Europe in 1501. Joseph of Malabar, as he is known in some Portuguese documents, was no novice in foreign travel. We get to know he had travelled to Antioch in connection with the appointment of the Bishop of Malabar. Joseph has travelled further from Lisbon to Rome and got presented himself before the Pope.
In that case, he is definitely the first Indian who saw the Pieta of Michelangelo!!
Dr Jayaram Poduval
Department of Art History& Aesthetics
The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda
Gujarat
jpoduval@gmail.com