India is generally known as the land of Hinduism and Buddhism, and rightly so. But it is also home to a unique branch of Christianity, the Thomas Christians.
According to the “Acts of Thomas,” written in the third century, Jesus' apostle Thomas — the Doubter (see John 20:24-29) — visited India around A.D. 52, probably to preach to the “Cochin Jews” — a Jewish merchant colony in Kerala that was participating in the lucrative Roman-Indian trade of the age. During his 20-year mission in India, Thomas is also said to have preached to Gondophares IV, a king of the Indo-Parthian dynasty in modern Pakistan and northwest India
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