The Kerala Brethren are a significant subset of the Open Brethren movement. In the South Indian State of Kerala, four Syrian Christian (Nasrani) men who came from traditional churches were baptised in 1898, and many of the Kerala Brethren consider this event to have been the start of their movement. Some 600 of the 2,200 Brethren assemblies (as their churches are generally called) in India are located in Kerala. Characteristics The Brethren have no central hierarchy or governing body. They see themselves as an informal network of like-minded autonomous local churches, not as a denomination in the organizational sense. Common support for itinerant preachers, publications, seminaries, and missions agencies, however, often leads to a high degree of cooperation among Brethren assemblies, and among Kerala's Christians, the Brethren are noted for their strong sense of identity. The Brethren assemblies in Kerala are also known as "verpaatu sabhakal" due to their heavy emphasis on separation from the world for greater devotion to Jesus Christ. This emphasis on separation, although common among the Brethren throughout India and in some streams of the Brethren internationally, is particularly pronounced in Kerala. History Many Indian Christians believe that the Apostle Thomas brought the Christian message to India in 52AD. In the words of an Indian hymn, "...It was his mission to espouse India to the One-Begotten...." Some Indian Brethren disclaim their missionary origins, instead making a case for historical continuity with the First-Century converts of the Apostle Thomas, claiming that for several centuries Christians on the Malabar coast (modern Kerala) followed what Brethren believe to have been the New Testament model of church organization and worship, with no clergy, and that clericalism began to creep in only after 345 AD, when seventy-two families belonging to seven Jewish clans followed Thomas of Cana from Iraq to Kodungalloor, which is now in Kerala. Thomas of Cana, they claim, brought in bishops and deacons, changing the practices of the Kerala Christians. This interpretation of history is not widely shared by non-Brethren Christians, however. The modern Brethren movement was introduced into India in 1833 by Anthony Norris Groves, a dentist turned missionary who was one of the original Plymouth Brethren pioneers in Ireland. The Brethren movement began to take root in Kerala when Mathai Upadeshi, who had been an (Anglican) CMS evangelist from Tirunelveli, arrived in 1872. Another early preacher was Justhus Joseph, also known as Vidwankutty, a Tamil Brahmin