Edessan Migration 345 CE

According to the historical accounts of the JSOC, at this point when they were living in the anxiety of persection and diminishing numbers, 292 years from the arrival of the Holy Apostle Thomas, the Apostle appeared to Mar Joseph, the Metropolitan of Urho (or Edessa) in Mesopotamia.  He heard the voice of the Apostle saying: ‘are you not grieved that the people of Malayala that I had won by my blood are being destroyed by going astray without the Word?’  The bishop  hastily travelled to where his superiors resided, the Patriarch of Antioch and his suffragan the Catholicos of Seleucia, and informed them of his dream. Together they sent a certain Jerusalemite merchant called Thomas of Cana on a fact-finding mission to Kerala.  This merchant Thomas, referred to by the Syrian Christians as ‘Knai Thoma’, went to Kerala and met with the Christians there, recognising them by the crosses they wore, and he returned to Mesopotamia with news of the deficiencies of the Kerala Christians.  As a result, they decided to despatch a party of Christians to go and settle in Kerala to support and strengthen the Christians there.  With the encouragement and blessing of the two hierarchs the Patriarch of Antioch and the Catholicos of Seleucia, Bishop Joseph and a large group of settlers, including priests, deacons and seventy of families of laymen, together making up over four hundred people drawn from the various cities in the region, left their homeland by ship under the leadership of Knai Thoma.

They disembarked in Kodungallur, the same city where St. Thomas the Apostle had landed, and the Christians of Kerala received them with joy and paid homage to the Metropolitan.  The merchant Knai Thoma presented himself to the king Cheraman Perumal (a dynastic name) who ruled the Malayala-country at the time, laid expensive gifts before him and informed him of all the circumstances of his arrival.  The king was pleased, and is said to have declared: ‘without a doubt, we the King of the country, will give you all that you need’.  He gave them land to build a church and settle down, as well as a Charter of innumerable honours and privileges, for both the foreign and indigenous Christians to enjoy.  He conferred on them the title ‘Mappila’ (from maha-pilla=Royal Sons).  To ensure that the Christians were never again persecuted, and the rights he granted them were never altered or revoked by future kings, Cheraman Perumal had these rights and privileges inscribed on copper plates, with the decree that these were not altered ‘as long as the sun and the moon remained’.  A copy of these rights inscribed on stone was then laid face down at the entrance of a certain temple, so that if challenged, the Christians could refer to their royally granted rights.  In the land that Cheraman Perumal had granted them in Kodungalloor, the combined body of Christians built a city, and calling it ‘Mahadevar-pattanam’ or the ‘City of the Great God’ they settled, and lived there ‘in strength and force’ (shakthiyode paarthu vannu.). 

The JSOC refer to this first arrival of the Mesopotamians as the ‘Edessan migration of 345’ because of the central part it played in their restoration and subsequent prosperity, both spiritually and materially.  Through the Edessans’ arrival, a link was established with the See of Antioch, which introduced to the JSOC the Syriac language, liturgy and doctrine, thus bringing the St Thomas Christians of Kerala into an ecclesiastical structure and order under the See of Antioch.  As a Diocese of the See of Antioch, it also brought them within the Universal body of the Christian Church, and an Apostolic See from which to derive episcopal visits and priestly ordinations according to the orthodox (that is, the straight and true) faith.

Because of the strong connection between Kerala and Edessa through various elements of the St Thomas narrative, this migration also helped in reinforcing Kerala Christians’ foundational tradition in relation to St Thomas.  The Edessan settlers brought with them their Judeo-Christian identity and culture, reflected in the careful observation of ritual practices and religious life.  As the Judeo-Christians of Mesopotamia were pejoratively called Nasṟānis in Palestine and nearby regions this term came to be applied to the native Christians of Kerala as well, and the composite community acquired the name ‘Nasṟāni-Mappilas’.  As the community was based in Maliamkara (or Malankara in its elided from), the district in the great sprawling city of Kodungalloor where Cheraman Perumal had settled them, their communal identity came to be designated as ‘Nasṟāni-Mappilas of Malankara’, the term ‘Malankara’ thus becoming a distinct part of their identity, whatever denomination they adopted in later years. 

They also believe that according to their ancient historical accounts, Knai Thoma and other elders together instituted certain traditions and practices among them.   One of the most  significant of these was that when they built their city in Kodungalloor, the nobles and dependents of both the Edessans and indigenous Christians were given opposite sides of the main street to live in, namely combined body of nobles to the North and the combined body of dependents to the South side, and numerous social practices were also prescribed to them as distinct markers.  This their accounts affirm, was the origin of the terms ‘Northists’ and ‘Southists’.  It appears that the Christians did not follow this demarcation in the prescribed exactitude, but rather interpreting the division in terms of their racial and heritage identities.  The larger body of JSOC called the ‘Northists’ constitute the indigenous Christians, while the smaller body, those who arrived from Mesopotamia.  It may be noted here that  this distinction within the JSOC community continues to the present day, with the Southists affirming their Mesopotamian origins and identity by practising strict endogamy.  From the late 19th century onwards, they  have been governed by their own Metropolitan in a separate diocese, directly under Antioch.

The Edessan migration is a significant touchstone for the JSOC’s self-perception and identity, because whereas they were brought into Christianity through the preaching of Apostle Thomas, it was this migration that brought them under the authority and protection of the Holy See of Antioch, which then became the fount of their ecclesiastical and doctrinal identity, thus making this event an integral part of their historical narrative.  It is believed that in honour of St. Thomas the Apostle, Mar Joseph conferred upon a priest from one of the priestly-clans the Apostle himself had chosen, called Pakalomattom, the honourable position of Archdeacon to govern the Church in temporal matters, a tradition that  continued through successive generations, until the 17th century.  For their spiritual instruction and the performance of episcopal functions such as the ordination of priests, metropolitans were sent to them by successive Patriarchs of Antioch, who also gave counsel to the Archdeacon, and in this manner they lived in prosperity for the next 480 years.

From the time of its granting in the 4th century, to the 16th century, the copper-plate Charter given to the Christians by Cheraman Perumal, known as the Knai Thommen cheppedu (=Copper-plates of Knai Thoma),was the go-to document that the Christians invoked whenever their rights were infringed or their security threatened.  Just as Cheraman Perumal had promised, it was respected and honoured by successive Hindu kings down the centuries, conferring upon the Christians the bedrock of their freedom and security in the country where they were essentially a minority religion.  However, in the mid-16th century, the Charter somehow changed hands and the Portuguese came to possess it, from which time it has not been seen or heard of, and its whereabouts at present are unknown.  Some copies exist however, one of them being in the British Museum.