and very broad piece of ground; besides he granted them all the royal honours' which were written on copper-plates. Lo! these plates are preserved among us to this day. Having received all this from the king, they returned to Moljomkare to build a church and town And they built a church in the country of Kuramaklur which they had received in gift from the king, and there they erected a town of 472 houses from east to west on both sides, and they duly inhabited it. Now, in those days and subsequently, Syrian Fathers used to come by order of the Catholicos of the East, and they took care of the district of India and Malabar, while the Syrians spread from that town." In the 18th century (1782), Mar Ousep Cariattil, Northist priest and leader of the Kerala Syrian Catholics, wrote a short history of the Malabar Church in which he included the arrival of Knai Thoma. Cariattil notes the importance given to the migration of Knai Thoma and his party by the Native Christians of St. Thomas in their traditions: "Those known as the Christians of St. Thomas in Malabar had preserved from the year 52 of the popular era for seven entire centuries. After that failing the succession of Bishops, began a decadence of Religion. However this defect was remedied by a rich and liberal merchant and Zealous catholic, Knai Thoma, who returning in haste to Babylonia, his native country, brought with him a bishop and two priests of laudable behavior and great learning in Syriac and Chaldean, which are the languages of the Rite of the people of Malabar, They worked with great zeal, and very soon they made the ancient virtues and fervor of Christian religion reflourish. These (as the first apostles) helped the nation in everything pertaining to ecclesiastical discipline and sciences. And therefore the Nation always considered the Babylonians as their benefactors. In these circumstances due to the want of natives, during the following centuries the Bishops from Babylonia governed the churches with no vested interest, they being, as we said, of the same Rite" Sainthood In the 17th century, several Portuguese officials noted that the Christians of Kerala viewed Knai Thoma as a saint. In 1604, Archbishop Francisco Ros gave the following account: "...I found moreover the name of the said Thomas Cananeo among the names of the Saints which the Deacon names