The Mar Thoma Syrian Church, often shortened to Malankara Mar Thoma Church, is a Syriac Christian Church based in Kerala, India. Its members are part of the Saint Thomas Christian community, which originated from the missionary activity of Thomas the Apostle in Malankara . The Church in Malankara flourished under various ecclesiastical faith streams from time to time.The Mar Thoma Church is an autonomous Oriental church with Syriac high church traditions and eclectic characteristics from the Reformation era. The church defines itself as Apostolic in origin, Universal in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in principle, Ecumenical in outlook, Oriental in worship, Democratic in function, and Episcopal in character.The Malankara Church witnessed a Reformation movement during the nineteenth century, inspired by contact with Anglican missionaries from Britain. Many in the church were fascinated by the reformation principles. The reformation was an attempt to eliminate certain practices prevalent in the Malankara Church which the reformers believed were brought about after the Synod of Diamper. Beginning in 1840, reform-minded Malankara Church clergyman Abraham Malpan instituted changes independently in his parish at Maramon, including holding services in the local language, Malayalam, rather than the traditional Syriac language, and making other revisions to the Holy Qurbana like removing intercessional prayers to Mary and the Apostles.This led to a rift in the church hierarchy between Abraham's supporters and the metropolitan bishop, Mar Dionysius IV. Abraham Malpan sent his nephew, Deacon Mathews, to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch to be consecrated as Bishop Mathews Mar Athanasius. The leadership dispute was settled in 1852 with Mathews Mar Athanasius being recognized as Metropolitan, serving until his death in 1877. However, the rift never healed, and ultimately the Malankara Church split into the reformist faction headed by the reigning Metropolitan and the Jacobite faction headed by the Patriarch of Antioch in 1889. The reformist faction was renamed to form the Mar Thoma Syrian Church in 1898. In 1940 a schism formed in the Mar Thoma Syrian Church over the extent of Reformation theology; the modern reformists founded the St. Thomas Evangelical Church in 1961.Until the beginning of the 20th century, Mar Thoma Christians lived in a few districts of Central Travancore and Kunnamkulam in Kerala. Since that time they have spread with the 20th-century Indian diaspora to North America, Europe, the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The church currently has around 950,000 members in Kerala, and another 1,000,000 throughout the diaspora. Their mother tongue is Malayalam, the language of Kerala, and historically the variety known as Suriyani Malayalam was associated with them.
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