Know Your Keralachristian Community
The Pride of Keralachristians:
Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar - Author of the first travelogue in an Indian language (1778). He remained the Governador for thirteen years in Syro Malabar Church, Kodungallur.
Oommen Chandy, Chief Minister of Kerala. Oommen Chandy received the 2013 United Nations Public Service Award for the category "Preventing and Combating Corruption in the Public Service".
Tessy Thomas, Project Director of Agni Missile Project. She is the first woman scientist to head a missile project in India.
Anna Chandy from Thiruvithamkoor was the first woman judge of an Indian High Court.
Dr. Benjamin Pulimood (1936 - 2011), from Kottayam was the Director/Principal of the Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore, Tamil Nadu and president of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology.
Did you Know?
Kerala Christians constitute 20% of Kerala's population. Christians represent a much larger percentage of the population of Kerala than of India considered as a whole.
Christianity is believed to have reached the shores of Kerala in 52 A.D. with the arrival of St Thomas, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ.
The first Malayalam edition of the Bible was published in 1811 and its first translation was done by Benjamin Bailey in 1841.
St. Francis CSI Church, in Fort Cochin, originally built in 1503 by Franciscan friars, is the oldest European church in India.
Saint Alphonsa, from Kudamalloor, near Kottayam, is the first native saint from India. She was a Syro-Malabar Catholic Franciscan Religious Sister who was honoured as a saint.
