According to legend, St Thomas or Doubting Thomas, one of the 12
apostles, came to South India soon after Jesus Christ died. He is
said to have arrived in Cranganore in AD 52 and spent the next 12
years along the Malabar Coast, spreading the Gospel and converting
the local population. He gradually moved eastwards and finally settled
in mylapore. He spent the last years of his life in a cave on little
Mount, from where he would walk every day to the beach, resting
for a while and preaching in the groves. It is said that one day
in AD 72, while praying on the Mount of St Thomas, he was mortally
wounded by a lance and fled to little mount, where he was buried
in the crypt of the small chapel he had built. This is today the
Basilica of san Thome, and the large stained-glass window depicts
his story. The portuguese colonized mylapore in the early 16th century,
lured by accounts left by the 13th-century Venetian traveller, Marcopolo,
who had visited the early Nestorian chapel here. The saint holds
a special place in the hearts of Indians and was decreed the Apostle
of India in 1972. |
