Place · Thomas Christian church · India
Palayoor
Also known as Palayoor Mar Thoma, St Thomas' Palayoor, Thrissur, Palayoor Mar Thoma, Thrissur, Palayoor — Mar Thoma church
The village of Palayur in Thrissur district, Kerala — one of the seven-and-a-half churches (Ezhara Palli) that Saint Thomas is said to have founded in Kerala in 52 CE in the apostolic tradition of the Thomas Christians. The current St Thomas Syro-Malabar church was rebuilt in 1961 on the earlier foundation, which was said to be built from a Hindu temple Thomas appropriated. The village preserves a tank (Palayur Pond) said to have been consecrated by Thomas's touch. The Ezhara Palli circuit links Palayur, Kodungallur, Paravur, Niranam, Nilakkal, Chayal, Kokkamangalam and (half) Thiruvithamcode — Kerala's apostolic Christian geography.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 10.590, 76.030
Connections (4)
- Teaching lineageKodungallur & Mar Thoma church
Kerala tradition names seven and a half churches founded by Thomas — Kodungallur, Palayoor, Kottakavu, Kokkamangalam, Niranam, Chayal, Kollam, and a half at Thiruvithamcode — spread along the backwaters and the old trade routes rather than randomly. Whatever their founding date, the distribution follows the commercial geography of the Malabar coast, which is the pattern one would expect of a community formed by trade.
- Teaching lineageSan Thome, Mylapore
The Kerala churches and the Mylapore tomb are one narrative: Thomas is said to have landed at Kodungallur in 52, founded churches along the Malabar coast, crossed the peninsula and been killed near Madras. San Thome is built over the tomb the tradition names, rebuilt by the Portuguese in 1523 and again in the 1890s. Marco Polo visited the shrine in 1292 and describes pilgrims of both religions taking earth from it.
- Shared sacred geographyCheraman Juma Masjid, Kodungallur
Kodungallur held the Cheramān Juma Masjid, by local tradition India's first mosque, and Palayoor's church claims foundation by St Thomas; the Jewish settlement at Cranganore was a few kilometres away. One small stretch of Malabar backwater carries the subcontinent's earliest claims for three religions that all arrived by sea, and all three claims rest on tradition rather than on anything excavated.
- Companion in the same setKottakavu, Ernakulam
Kottakāvu on the Periyar and Palayoor near the Thrissur coast are two of the seven-and-a-half churches, and both carry the granite crosses that Kerala Christians cut long before any European arrived. Several of these Persian crosses have Pahlavi inscriptions around them, which points the church's affiliation at Mesopotamia and the East Syrian patriarchate rather than at Rome. They are the oldest physical evidence of Christianity in India, and they were made by masons who also worked on Hindu temples.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Palayur”. Kerala church records; Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings (1989).
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