Temples: Santhome Cathedral Basilica
The other disciples therefore said unto him, we have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
- John 20:25, the Holy Bible, King James Version.
That was St. Thomas who refused to believe in the resurrection of Jesus just because he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. Because of his scepticism, he was also christened- ‘Doubting Thomas.’
St. Thomas was one of the hallowed 12 Apostles of Christ. The crazy thing is- he was rumoured to have sailed as far as the Indian Subcontinent to spread his Gospel.
Indeed, St. Thomas was reported to have landed in Muziris- a modern day version of a mainland Atlantis said to have existed somewhere along the Malabar Coast near Kodangallur in Kerala. He is widely regarded as the Patron Saint of India.
St. Thomas’ tomb exists today in the Santhome Cathedral Basilica in Mylapore, Chennai.
Originally, it was a Church built in the 16th century by Portuguese explorers. In 1893, it was re-built as a Cathedral by the British, sporting the current new-Gothic look.
Santhome is one of the only three known churches in the world built over the tomb of an apostle of Jesus, the other two being St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City and St. James’ Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Galicia, Spain. It is reputed to house many relics to have originally belonged to St. Thomas himself.
You know what’s interesting? Christianity touched Indian shores way before it hit Europe.
While large tracts of Europe had converted to Christianity within half a century, India did not fall to its religious imperialism of the time. Instead, what we see today (discounting the evangelism of missionaries in some parts of the country during the modern era) is what happened back then during ancient times- a peaceful, organic amalgamation and syncretisation of contradictory belief systems within the Indian Spiritual Worldview.
There is no doubting that.
