[14] Following the discovery of the sea route to India, by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in the 15th century AD, Western Christianity was established in the European colonies of Goa, Tranquebar, Bombay, Madras and Pondicherry; as in Catholicism (of Latin or Syriac Rites) and various forms of Protestantism.

[citation needed] Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History (5:10) states that Bartholomew, a disciple of Jesus, went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew.

[78] It is believed that by the time of the establishment of the Sassanid Empire around 226 AD, there were bishops of the Church of the East in northwest India, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, with laymen and clergy alike engaging in missionary activity.

[93] Saint Thomas Christians seem to have enjoyed various rights and privileges as well as a high status as recorded on copper plates, also known as Cheppeds, Royal Grants, Sasanam, etc.

Historically, this community was organised as the Province of India of the Church of the East by Patriarch of Babylon Timothy I (780–823 AD) in the eighth century, served by bishops and a local dynastic archdeacon.

The Saint Thomas Christians were pressured to acknowledge the authority of the Pope and most of them eventually accepted the Catholic faith, but a part of them switched to West Syriac Rite.

[111] Resentment of these measures led to some part of the community to join the Archdeacon, Thomas, in swearing never to submit to the Portuguese Jesuits in the Coonan Cross Oath in 1653.

[116][117][118] In 1453, the fall of Constantinople to the Sunni Islamic Ottoman Caliphate marked the end of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire), and severed European trade links by land with Asia.

This massive blow to Christendom spurred the Age of Discovery as Europeans started seeking alternative routes east by sea along with the goal of forging alliances with pre-existing Christian nations.

This created an episcopal see – suffragan to Funchal, with a jurisdiction extending potentially over all past and future conquests from the Cape of Good Hope to China.

[135] According to Maria Aurora Couto, Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier requested the installation of the Goa Inquisition in a letter dated 16 May 1546 to King John III of Portugal, but the tribunal commenced only in 1560.

From 1534 to 1552, a priest by the name António do Porto converted over 10,000 people, built a dozen churches, convents, and a number of orphanages hospitals and seminaries.

The first Protestant missionaries to set foot in India were two Lutherans from Germany, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau, who began work in 1705 in the Danish settlement of Tranquebar.

[145][146][147] Hermann Gundert a German missionary, scholar, and linguist, as well as the maternal grandfather of German novelist and Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse was a missionary in the South Indian state of Kerala and was instrumental in compiling a Malayalam grammar book, Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam (1859), in which he developed and constructed the grammar currently spoken by the Malayalis, published a Malayalam-English dictionary (1872), and contributed to work on Bible translations into Malayalam.

Carey and his colleagues, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, blended science, Christianity, and constructive Orientalism in their work at the Danish settlement of Serampore, near Calcutta.

Supported initially by the Pennsylvania Ministerium, and later by the Foreign Mission Board of the General Synod, Heyer was also encouraged and assisted by British government officials.

[169] Altars, statues, pulpits, crosses, bells and belfries of churches along with other household items are among the many things that form part of the sacred art of the Indian Christians.

[185] Historical ties with the Church of the East and assimilation of Indian culture have contributed to the development of a unique subculture among these traditional Syrian Christians or Nasranis of Kerala.

[190] Christianity in other parts of India spread under the colonial regimes of the Dutch, Danish, French and most importantly the English from the early 17th century to the time of the Indian Independence in 1947.

Religion plays a significant role in the daily life of Indian Christians, India ranks 15 among countries with based on church attendance.

[199] Prior to the 1960s, the dhothi was worn by South Canarese Christian bridegrooms to their Church weddings; it has almost completely been replaced by the black suit and tie nowadays.

There are substantial Christian populations, in the regions of Arunachal, Assam, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

[256][257] On 22 January 1999, an Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burnt to death by Dara Singh (Bajrang Dal) while sleeping in his station wagon at Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district in Odisha, India.

Sitting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Manoj Pradhan was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for six years by a fast track court for a murder during the 2008 communal riots in Odisha's Kandhamal district.

[263][267][268] A program or movement with its roots in Hindutva ideology, known as Ghar wapasi ('returning home'), sponsored by a number of Hindu nationalist groups, facilitates the mass conversion of Christians– and, especially, Muslims –"back" to their supposedly "inherent" or "natural" religion of Hinduism.

Organisations which promote Ghar wapasi include the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Dharm Jagaran Samiti.

[269][270] India is number 10 on Open Doors' 2022 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the fifty countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.

[271] However, a faction of the Syrian Christians of Kerala do support the Hindutva ideology and extremist groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS);[272] which was involved in the violent and forceful demolition of the Babri Masjid.

[280] The Bakur Manuscript reports Tippu Sultan as having said:[281] All Musalmans should unite together, considering the annihilation of infidels as a sacred duty, and labour to the utmost of their power, to accomplish that subject.Soon after the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784, Tipu gained control of South Canara.

Among them were Nossa Senhora de Rosario Milagres at Mangalore, Jesu Marie Jose at Omzoor, the Chapel at Bolar, the Church of Merces at Ullal, Imaculata Conceiciao at Mulki, Sao Lawrence at Karkal[citation needed] and Immaculata Conceciao at Baidnur.