Father Job Sam Mathew is an ordained priest of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and is a guest faculty member in the Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam (Kerala, India). He holds a Bachelor of Technology in chemical engineering, a Bachelor of Divinity from the Orthodox Theological Seminary, and a Master of Theology from the United Theological College, Bangalore. He served as an administrator and Executive officer of the Orthodox Sunday School Association of the East. He studies early church history, especially Christianity in India and the Malankara Church.
To understand the bewildering diversity of Christian denominations in today’s India one needs to examine what they have in common—namely, their roots in the apostolic mission of Saint Thomas to India. The ecclesiastical tradition stating that the Apostle Thomas reached India, evangelized, inaugurated Christianity, and was ultimately martyred is well-documented by both Eastern and Western Church fathers and other oral and written sources.
