{"id":16059,"date":"2026-08-05T09:37:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T09:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oeuvre-orient.fr\/the-syro-malabar-church\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T09:37:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T09:37:04","slug":"the-syro-malabar-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeuvre-orient.fr\/en\/the-syro-malabar-church\/","title":{"rendered":"The Syro-Malabar Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After Mesopotamia,<strong> Saint Thomas the Apostle <\/strong>reached the Malabar Coast in western India in A.D. 52, and then the east coast, where he died a martyr in A.D. 72.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This Church, which shares a common origin with the Church of Persia, <strong>was Latinized by the Portuguese beginning in 1552 <\/strong>and regained its Syrian identity and its Eastern Aramaic (Chaldean) rite in 1919. It became a Major Archiepiscopal Church in 1992. It is led by<strong> Bishop Rapha\u00ebl Thattil<\/strong>, who was elected Major Archbishop in January 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The number of Syro-Malabar Catholics is estimated at 4.5 million, spread across 35 dioceses in India, primarily in the state of Kerala. With the creation of two new dioceses in 2017, the Syro-Malabar Church is demonstrating a genuine missionary zeal despite the rise of Hindu nationalism and increasing persecution and discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/oeuvre-orient.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/mar-raphael-thattil1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After Mesopotamia, Saint Thomas the Apostle reached the Malabar Coast in western India in A.D. 52, and then the east coast, where he died a martyr in A.D. 72. This Church, which shares a common origin with the Church of Persia, was Latinized by the Portuguese beginning in 1552 and regained its Syrian identity and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"thematique":[],"class_list":["post-16059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Syro-Malabar Church - \u0152uvre d&#039;orient<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oeuvre-orient.fr\/en\/the-syro-malabar-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Syro-Malabar Church - \u0152uvre d&#039;orient\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After Mesopotamia, Saint Thomas the Apostle reached the Malabar Coast in western India in A.D. 52, and then the east coast, where he died a martyr in A.D. 72. 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