In South India, and particularly in Kerala, the origins of the christian communities date back to the evangelisation by the apostle Thomas, who, according to tradition, landed on the Malabar coast in 52 A.D.
Later, those communities were linked to the Church of the East ( also called the Nestorian church, and later the Chaldean church). Having converted to the roman catholicism, they rebelled; from this time on, they split off into a number of groups: they divided into a roman catholic group and another group linked with the Syrian orthodox Church having Antiocha as the patriarchal headquarters. As a result they kept the rites, liturgy and prayers of those different churches in the syriac language. The Keralese christians refer to themselves under the name of “Saint Thomas Christians”, but are also called “Syrian christians of India”...