Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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MALABAR CHRISTIANS

Also known as the "Thomas Christians," they live in southwest India, on the coast in the district of Travancore and Cochin. Tracing their spiritual ancestry to St. Thomas the Apostle, they now form three groups: the Jacobites, or Monophysites who rejected the Council of Chalcedon; the Catholics who were converted from Nestorianism by the Portuguese in 1599; and the Malankarese who reunited with Rome in 1930. Each of these groups has its special liturgy.