Place · Thomas tomb basilica · India

San Thome, Mylapore

Function

Burial and funerary

Confidence

Established / referenced

Location

13.033, 80.278

Connections (7)

• Teaching lineagePalayoor

  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.

• Mythic sequenceKodungallur & Mar Thoma church

  The tradition runs coast to coast: Thomas lands at Muziris on the Arabian Sea, founds the seven and a half churches along the Kerala backwaters, crosses the peninsula and is killed at Mylapore on the Bay of Bengal, where his tomb is shown. Marco Polo records pilgrims there in the 1290s, which makes it a known destination two centuries before any European mission reached India.

• Teaching lineageSt Xavier's Cathedral, Kottār

  Kottār's cathedral grew from Francis Xavier's mission among the Paravar pearl-fishers of this coast in the 1540s, and San Thome at Mylapore, three hundred kilometres north, is built over the tomb the Thomas tradition names. Between them they hold the two Catholic claims on the Tamil coast — an apostolic one of the first century and a Jesuit one of the sixteenth — and the second was preached partly on the strength of the first.

• Imperial administration ofEstado da Índia — Portuguese India

  San Thome de Meliapor was the Portuguese basilica raised over the traditional tomb of the apostle Thomas in Mylapore. The Estado da Índia acquired the coast in 1523, built the church over the earlier Nestorian one, and administered the mission through the Bishop of Cochin until Madras was ceded to the English in 1639. It is one of only three known churches in the world built over a claimed apostle's tomb.

• Shared sacred geographyGunadala Matha Shrine, Vijayawada

  San Thome and Gunadala are the two great Marian shrines of coastal Andhra-Tamil Catholicism, three hundred kilometres apart along the Coromandel. San Thome is where the tradition places the apostle's tomb and the roots of the Latin rite in the south; Gunadala is the twentieth-century pilgrimage centre that draws a million pilgrims a year to its February feast. Between them they hold the older and the newer poles of the same Catholic map.

• Site withinMadras / Chennai

  San Thome, Mylapore lies within Madras / Chennai — the two sites sit about 6 km apart, well inside the city's historical boundary and part of the same urban or peri-urban landscape. San Thome, Mylapore is one of the specific sites that give Madras / Chennai its layered character, and reads differently when seen as a stop within the larger city rather than as an isolated monument on an open map. The surrounding neighbourhoods, roads and other heritage ensembles belong to the same single urban fabric.

• Site adjacencyLittle Mount, Chennai

  Little Mount and San Thome at Mylapore are the two inland and coastal poles of the Chennai Thomas tradition — the cave of the refuge and the tomb of the burial. Marco Polo in 1292 and the Portuguese chroniclers of 1517 both describe pilgrims moving between the sites. The 1551 Little Mount chapel and the 1523 Portuguese basilica at San Thome, rebuilt in the 1890s, together with St. Thomas Mount form the three Chennai apostolic sites the Thomas Christian community of Kerala and the Latin Catholic community of the Tamil coast share.

On these journeys

• The Thomas Christians of Malabar
• Marco Polo — the Indian Ocean homeward (c. 1292–95)
• Niccolò de' Conti — twenty-five years east (1419–44)

Sources

San Thome Basilica records

• Wikipedia