Background

A crucial but often forgotten ecclesial relation that the Christians of Malankara had during the late antique and medieval periods was with the Coptic Church of Alexandria. It continued throughout the centuries with an apparent abruption after the end of the first millennium of the Christian era, rekindled once more in the 1600s. With the formalisation of the communion of the ancient Miaphysite Sees as the Oriental Orthodox Communion in the twentieth century, the Churches of Alexandria and Malankara remain in formal communion with one another.

The witness of Greek, Syriac, Coptic, and Arabic sources to this relation points to another vital point: there were Christians of the Miaphysite confession in Malankara. This page serves as an overview of these texts, accompanied by notes primarily focusing on geography.

Second-Century: Pantaenus

They say that [Pantaenus] displayed such zeal for the divine Word, that he was appointed as a herald of the Gospel of Christ to the nations in the East, and was sent as far as India. For indeed there were still many evangelists of the Word who sought earnestly to use their inspired zeal, after the examples of the apostles, for the increase and building up of the Divine Word. Pantaenus was one of these, and is said to have gone to India. It is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, which they had preserved till that time.

• Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5:10

[Pantaenus] was of so great prudence and erudition both in Scripture and secular literature that, on the request of the legates of that nation [rogatus ab illius gentis legatis], he was sent to India by Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, where he found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve Apostles, had preached the advent of the Lord Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew, and on his return to Alexandria he brought this with him written in Hebrew characters.

• Jerome, On Illustrious Men 36

While Eusebius simply mentions that Pantaenus was appointed a preacher to the Christians of India, Jerome adds the detail that this followed a request from the Indians themselves. In fact, the Greek translation of Jerome's work, quite plausibly undertaken by one of Jerome's colleagues, renders gentis legatis as “the presbyters of India” [των Ινδιας πρεσβυτερων]. The Indian legates, therefore, may have been priests.

Eusebius elsewhere mentions the vast number of churches and Christian communities “in the country of the Persians and of the Indians [Syr. Hindus]” (Theophania 4:4), and Jerome explicitly states in a letter addressed to a Roman orator that Pantaenus was sent to India in order “to preach Christ to the Brahmans and philosophers there” (Letters 70:4). Regardless of this, however, it is often suggested that the “India” which Pantaenus visited was either South Arabia or Axum, particularly since both Eusebius and Jerome mention St. Bartholomew, and not St. Thomas, to have preached there.

While this is admittedly possible, it appears to me to be more probable that this “Bartholomew” who preached to the Indians and shared with them a Semitic (that is, Hebrew or Aramaic) copy of the Gospel of Matthew was an earlier preacher, presumably from the Levant, who was later confused with the Apostle by the same name. After all, it is generally agreed that the Semitic renditions of the Gospel of Matthew known to the Fathers were translations of its Greek text, and current academic consensus dates the canonical form of the Gospel of Matthew to the late first century CE, by which time nearly all Apostles had passed away. On the other hand, the hypothesis that an early-second-century preacher travelled to the Indian communities founded by St. Thomas, and shared with them a recent Semitic rendition of a Gospel-text, is quite plausible. Therefore, while we cannot be certain, it is likelier that the “India” which Pantaenus visited was the Subcontinent.

Fifth-Century: Pope Timothy II (Aelerus)

[Pope Timothy II] was writing letters such as these and advising how to receive those of the party of Proterius and became so well known even among the people of India that after their bishop had died they sent to him a request that he make [someone] a bishop for them, because they were of his faith.

• Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, Chronicle IV:12:2

Pseudo-Zachariah (ca. 570) wrote Books III to VI of his Chronicle largely based on the earlier Ecclesiastical History written by Zachariah of Mitylene (ca. 490), and it has been confirmed by scholarship that the section IV:12, from which is quoted the above excerpt, was also a part of Zachariah's History (Greatrex et al 2011, p. 51). What might have been the source of this information for Zachariah? It is noteworthy that Pope Timothy II had written an Ecclesiastical History earlier, which scholar and philologist Philippe Blaudeau (2006) believes was used by Zachariah extensively, particularly since Zachariah had the motive to defend and uphold the Pope as a champion of the Church. If this is the case, what Pseudo-Zachariah has preserved above is an abridgement of an account composed by none other than Pope Timothy II himself.

While there is no data to shed light on how Pope Timothy II or Zachariah would have understood the toponym “India”, Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor strictly restricts it to modern-day India and Indo-China. In his geographic overview of the known world, which he incorrectly attributes to Ptolemy VI Philometor and not to the geographer Ptolemy (ca. 150), we find “Outer India” (up to the Ganges), “Inner India” (beyond the Ganges), and “Sinon, a region of India” (south-east China), as well as “the great island” (i.e. Sri Lanka).

Among the royal cities of “Outer India” mentioned are Akaros and Madura / Midura, which correspond to Ptolemy's “Karoura, the royal residence of the Kêrobothros” (Geographika VII:1:86) and “Modoura, the royal residence of the Pandionos” (idem, VII:1:92): the early Chera capital in Vanchi-Karur and the Pandya capital in Madurai, respectively. And Kêrobothros, of course, is the literal Greek transcription of the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian term Kera[la]putra, “sons of Kera[la]”. Thus, it is quite clear that within the literary context of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, the reference to “India” is best understood as the Subcontinent.

Seventh-Century: A Dramatic Episode

After this there came a priest from the people of the Indians [اهل الهند] to Abba Simon [Pope Simeon I], to ask of him that he would ordain for him a bishop for the Indians. Now the people of the Indians were not subjects of the Muslims. So the Patriarch said to the Indian priest: “I cannot ordain a bishop for you without the command of the Emir, who is governor of the land of Egypt. Go to him, and make your need known to him. Then, if he bids me, I will do for you what you have requested, and you shall return in peace with your companions in peace to your country”. So the priest went from the Patriarch's house to go to the Emir. Then some of the Gaianites met him, and took him to Theodore, the chief of the Phantasiasts, and told Theodore the cause which had brought the priest from his country. Therefore Theodore said to him: “I will do what you need for yourself”. Then Theodore took a man of Maryût, and ordained him bishop for [the Indian priest], and ordained two priests for him, and sent them away secretly to India. But after they had travelled twenty days, the guardians of the roads, who were employed by the Muslims, seized them, and sent them to the caliph [in Damascus], whose name was Abd al-Malik. The Indian priest, however, escaped, and returned to Egypt. .. [Then the Caliph wrote to Abd al-Aziz, the governor of Egypt:] “It seems that you do not know what takes place in your own country, namely that the Patriarch of the Christians, who lives at Alexandria, has sent information of the affairs of Egypt to India”.

• History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church III:36-37

The narrative proceeds with Emir Abd al-Aziz giving Pope Simeon three days to prove the Coptic Church's innocence about this act of ordaining a bishop for the Indians. A monk then locates the Indian priest, who informs the Pope about Theodore's acts. At the end, the Emir is satisfied and decides to punish both Theodore and the Indian priest, though he ultimately spares their lives for the Pope's sake. This account, quite certainly composed by George the Archdeacon (ca. 700 CE) in his Life of Pope Simeon I, has been transmitted and preserved as part of the multi-layered HPCC, which underwent multiple redactions throughout the medieval era. Nevertheless, it appears to be reliable. In the reported conversation between the Emir and the Pope, the former says: “As my brother did to the men who were captured while they were travelling to India, so I will do to you if you do not tell me the truth” (idem, III:40). This marginal reference to the Caliph as Abd al-Aziz's brother, which occurs in the text quite naturally, accurately reflects history since the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik (d. 705) was indeed Abd al-Aziz's brother.

Unlike Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor's Chronicle, where the later geographic chapters confirm the referent of the toponym “India”, the HPCC account only provides us some clues. Firstly, since the people of this “India” were not subjects of the Muslims, this prima facie rules out South Arabia, which came under Muslim subjugation no later than ca. 650 CE. What about Nubia and Axum, then? It is unlikely that the Pope would choose to play no role in acquiring the Emir's consent in order to accept the clerical delegation's request if they belonged to his direct jurisdiction — this was true for Nubia and Axum, but not for Malankara.

Moreover, in the preceding Life of Pope Isaac I, also composed by George the Archdeacon, it is mentioned that when Pope Isaac attempted to resolve a dispute between the “the king of the Abyssinians and the king of the Nubians”, Abd al-Azîz was misled by the former's enemies into considering this act as one of treason against the Islamic State (idem, III:24-25). Once again, it is unlikely (a) that the same composer would once use the terms "Abyssinia" and "Nubia" carefully and then vaguely refer to one of them as “India”, or (b) that a later editor introduced the term “India”, since by the later centuries, “India” came to refer strictly to the Subcontinent alone. This is additionally confirmed by the later Muslim historian al-Maqrizi (d. 1442), who quite consistently uses the toponym Hind for the Subcontinent, even mentioning “[Apostle] Thōma who went to Hind and was killed there” (idem, p. 22), and records the same episode:

After him the Jacobites [i.e. Miaphysites; of Alexandria] raised in his stead, Simun [Simon] the Syrian, who lived seven years and a half until his death. In his days ambassadors came from the people of Hind [India] to ask that a bishop be sent to them; but the Patriarch declined, until he should have leave from the Sultan to appoint another.

• Rev. S. C. Malan trans. A Short History of the Copts and of their Church, p. 75

Lastly, HPCC describes the Indian priest as “black”, in accordance with the liturgical tradition, including that of St. Ephrem, which portrays the image of “dark / black” Indians evangelised by St. Thomas. Taking into account the evidence holistically, then, it may be concluded that the Indian Subcontinent, Malankara in particular, serves as the most probable candidate for HPCC's “India”. Should this be correct, this constituted the second incident, after that of ca. 470 CE involving Pope Timothy II, when an Indian delegation requested the Pope of Alexandria to consecrate a bishop for the Indians.

Sixteenth Century: Mar Ahatallah

Following the Portuguese Catholic attempts at wholly subjugating the Malankara Church and imposing the Papist faith upon her, situation worsened in the decades following Diamper 1599. In this context, Archdeacon Thoma I, the ethnarch of the community, decided to write to the Sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Persia (presumably Seleucia-Ctesiphon) requesting assistance. When Pope Mark VI of Alexandria received his letter, a certain Syrian prelate by the name of “Ahatallah / Aitalaha” — whom Syro-Malabar sources since Thekkedatthu 1972 have identified as a rival Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch who once entered into communion with Rome — was either present at his court or came to know of it. The Pope then appears to have suggested Mar Ahatallah to undertake the effort, an advice which he accepted.

Long story short, he was intercepted by the Portuguese, who moved him to Mylapore. As the native Christians of Malankara came to know of Mar Ahatallah's arrival, the Portuguese decided to move him to Europe and denied the Archdeacon's demand to meet him. While the Uniate account of this matter has been that the prelate was indeed taken to Goa and from there to Paris where he passed away, the Christians of Malankara strongly believed that he was murdered by the Portuguese by drowning. This ultimately led to the famed Coonan Cross Oath of 1653, and the episcopal consecration of Mar Thoma I by the hands of twelve presbyters, an ancient Alexandrian tradition apparently prescribed by Mar Ahatallah himself in a letter sent from Mylapore. In this manner, therefore, the See of Alexandria once again assisted the Malankara Church in re-establishing the Malankara Metropolitanate.

A Forgotten Memory

While later ecclesiastical histories including the Niranam Granthavāri remembered the relations between Malankara and Persia, nearly all of them did not mention even a word about the ones with Alexandria, perhaps because they were forgotten by this period; and the fact that Mar Ahatallah, who was sent by the See of Alexandria, came to be remembered as “Mar Ignatius, the Patriarch of Antioch“ did not help at all. In my awareness, the only exception to this is Pukadiyil Ittoop Writer (ca. 1860), who describes the period after Knai Thoma's arrival in the following manner:

ഈ കാലങ്ങളിൽ അലക്സന്ത്രീയയും മലയാളവും തമ്മിൽ വൻകച്ചവടം നടന്നിരുന്നു എന്നും പേർഷ്യ അലക്സന്ത്രീയ മുതലായ ദിക്കിൽ നിന്നും വേദതലവന്മാരെ ഈ മലയാളത്തിൽ വന്നു ഉപദേശിച്ചിരുന്ന പ്രകാരവും കാണാനുള്ളതല്ലാതെ ഏറിയ കാലത്തെ സൂക്ഷവർത്തമാനങ്ങൾ ഒന്നും അറിവാൻ പാടില്ല.

Apart from [the fact] it is known that great commerce was conducted between Alexandria and Malayalam [i.e. Kerala] during these times, and that vedathalavanmar (lit. spiritual / ecclesial leaders) came from Persia, Alexandria, and such directions to Malayalam to teach detailed information of those long [or distant] times are not known.

• Pukadyil Ittoop Writer, Malayalathulla Suriyani Kristiyanikalute Sabha Charithram, p. 119

This is not to say that there were no relations between Malankara and Alexandria in the period between the mid-1600s and the late-1900s. A notable example is Alexandria's involvement in the consecration of myron in 1876, presided over by Pat. Peter IV. As Karottuveettil Simon Mar Dionysius mentions in his Kandanad Granthavāri (ca. 1885), the Patriarch requested “the Egyptian Patriarch in Mizraim” — who was Pope Cyril V — to send certain medicinal ingredients for the consecration, and this was gladly fulfilled.