St. Thomas, one of the twelve chosen apostles, took the charge of Jesus Christ to the furthest reaches. He established a Christian community in India in 52AD. He continued establishing churches and communities along the trade routes through the East. He returned to India and is credited with building 7 and one half churches. He was martyred in India, twenty years later in 72AD. This apostolic Church, founded by Apostle Thomas, was included in the largest Patriarchate of the Ecumenical Synodal period. In India, his followers were called “Nazranies” for centuries. The term is still used today to refer to the common heritage of indigenous Christianity that continues to this day.
Early European explorers of the 16th Century ironically misunderstood America to be India, as they believed they had discovered a western route from Europe to India. Christopher Columbus is believed to be the one who gave the natives here the misnomer “Indios” or Indians. It became clear the “New World,” was not India. Nevertheless, it was not until the 20th Century that a substantial trade route was developed westward from India to America. It also was not until the 20th Century that the first indigenous Orthodox Christian Saint of India, St. Gregorios of Parumala, was publicly acknowledged.
It seems only proper that the original Church of India would continue St. Thomas’ mission in the New World in the name of St. Gregorios. The New World has become a place where secular society has left millions thirsty for Apostolic Truth and hungry for God’s Love.
As people from India established communities in North America through the second part of the 20th Century, His Holiness Catholicos Baselios Mar Thoma Matthews I and the Holy Synod of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church canonically instituted the American Diocese on January 1, 1979 and Thomas Mar Makarios as its first Metropolitan.
By the 1980s, the need for the Malankara Church to serve the Indian people that had settled in America as well as those that were visiting for vocational or educational purposes was growing as parishes began to increase in size and new parishes were developed. At the same time, it was increasingly clear that there needed to be a simultaneous mission to Americans, for Americans. The first American priest of the Malankara Orthodox Church, Fr. Michael Hatcher, was ordained in 1987.
In 1987, Dr. Thomas Mar Makarios, as Metropolitan of the American Diocese, founded the Mission Society of St. Gregorios of India. He later established a mission center in Montebello, New York. Fr. Michael Hatcher was elevated to chorespiscopos in 1994 and placed in charge of the Mission Society and mission parish in Spokane, Washington.
Now at the beginning of the 21st Century, there are four American priests and four mission parishes: The Mission Center in New York, St. Gregorios Mission Parish in Spokane, St. Thomas Mission Parish in Seattle, Washington and Holy Transfiguration Mission Parish in Madison, Wisconsin. St. Gregorios in Spokane now owns its own building. There are efforts to begin small missions in other places as well.
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