Syrian Catholics of Malabar (original) (raw)

The Paḻayakūṟ (Pazhayakoor) or Romo-Syrians or Syrian Catholics of Malabar refers to the East Syriac denominations of the Saint Thomas Christian Church, which claim ultimate apostolic origin from the Indian mission of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century AD. The Paḻayakūṟ descends from the faction that remained within the Catholic fold and held fast to an East Syriac identity after the historic Coonan Cross Oath of 1653 while being part of the community seceded from the Portuguese Padroado. The modern descendants of the Paḻayakūṟ are the Syro-Malabar Church and the Chaldean Syrian Church. Among these, the former is an Eastern Catholic church in full Communion with the Holy See and the latter is an integral part of the Assyrian Church of the East, one of the traditionalist descendants of