A newly built centre in New Eltham, London is the UK headquarters of an international Church that is thriving in Kerala, India and has become a familiar presence in the UK. It goes back, as it claims, to St Thomas the apostle known as Didymus (the twin) who gained the nickname ‘Doubting’. Like Barnabas, Thomas made his appearance in the New Testament narrative and then disappeared. We know nothing of Barnabas’s later activities (apart from the fact that he went independently to Cyprus after journeying with Paul) but we have reason to believe that Thomas took the Gospel message to India and spent 30 years in its service.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has an entry for 833 AD: ‘… that same year Sighelm and Athelstan carried to Rome the alms which the king had vowed to send thither, and also to India, to St Thomas and to St Bartholomew…’ There is some doubt about this; the chronicler may have intended to refer to Judea rather than India but shrines in Kerala and a tradition of Thomas’s martyrdom support the Indian connection.
Vicar of the London branch of the Mar Thoma Church is K.K. Kuruvilla. He has a wife Remi and two daughters. The church website has a striking picture of them. The Mar Thoma (meaning St Thomas) Church regards itself as ‘apostolic in origin, universal in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in principle, ecumenical in outlook, oriental in worship, democratic in function and episcopal in character.’. Prior to its move to Eltham, the Mar Thoma Church in London conducted services in St Katharine Cree church in Leadenhall Street, with 160 families in attendance. Students are also found in numbers amongst the worshippers. Syriac, a version of Aramaic, is used in Mar Thoma worship. The Church also values an Aramaic version of the Bible.
The Mar Thoma church has had a close connection with the Anglican form of Christianity as a result of the British connection with India. The Church is in full communion with the Anglican Communion and its bishops attend the Lambeth Conferences. It is a standing reminder of the existence of a non-Western Middle-Eastern version of the Christian faith that numbers perhaps a million adherents.
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