Christianity has had a long history of ministry in India, and Weyburn’s United Church minister, Rev. Mohandas Barnabas, gave a synopsis of that history in a talk at the Weyburn Rotary Club on Thursday.
He was born and raised in the southern part of India, and admitted that when he came to Canada, many people have asked him how he came to be a Christian in a country that is predominantly Hindu and Muslim.
The history of Christianity goes right back to St. Thomas, who first ventured to India in 52 A.D., who had heard of a large group of Syrian Jews that emigrated to India during the diaspora after the Jewish Temple was destroyed.
The result was several Jewish communities were established in the state of Kerala on the southern tip of India, and Barnabas noted he comes from a state near to Kerala.
Over the ensuing years, explorers came to India, some establishing trade routes to the country, and in some cases, they brought missionaries with them who established churches in various parts of the subcontinent.
The Portuguese found a trade route to India in 1524, and brought the Roman Catholic Church, which flourished on India’s west coast. Later, St. Francis Xavier went to India and started converting people in coastal fishing villages on the east coast.
Franciscans and Dominicans followed, each establishing churches, convents and monasteries, with the Dominicans also setting up schools and hospitals. Dutch traders brought the Lutheran Church, and Germans who followed them established a printing press for the first time in India, printing the Bible in various translations after learning the local languages. The traders set up the Dutch East India Company for trading.
Britain was the last major European power to go to India and colonized the country, establishing the British East India Trading Company in Calcutta, which operated from 1756 to 1858. They expressly banned any missionaries coming to their territories of India, which held until the Baptist missionary William Carey made his way there. In 1813, Britain’s Parliament passed a bill that would allow him to enter and establish a Baptist church there.
The British Raj was under British control from 1858 to 1947, when India gained their independence under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.
Various church groups set up in the northern states of India, including the Presbyterian Church and the Methodist Church, and in the south, the South India United Church was established.
Rev. Barnabas noted his grandfather was a minister of this latter church, which was originally under the Presbyterians. He also noted that the United Church of Canada took their inspiration from the South India United Church, as a number of denominations joined forces to form the new United Church.
For himself, Rev. Barnabas noted that he was part of the Church of South India, which is the largest denomination in that part of the country.
