After castigating Sita Ram Goel and Ishwar Sharan for their research on the St. Thomas in India fable (and falsely accusing Ishwar Sharan of importuning the San Thome bishop and Kapaleeshwar Temple executive), Thomas Charles Nagy virtually comes to the same conclusion they do about St. Thomas in India. He writes:
“The two main issues that weaken the historicity of the St. Thomas story and thus make St. Thomas a controversial figure in the modern day, is the reliance on the Acts of Thomas, as a pseudo-historical document, as well as the flimsiness of oral tradition as an accurate recording of history. Additionally, while the various arguments regarding the preservation of early Christian communities along the Malabar Coast are far more historically viable, they also cast some doubt over the validity of the St. Thomas tradition. It seems far more logical that Christianity was introduced to India by way of the Eastern Syrian Church, maybe as early as the fourth century CE, and maintained by subsequent migrations from those regions of the Middle East that fell under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Syrian Church.” – Extracted from Catholic Shrines in Chennai, India: The politics of renewal and ap[ostolic legacy, 2014
ACTA INDICA 