in what is now the Madras area, where a local King and many people were converted. One tradition related that he went from there to China via Malacca in Malaysia, and after spending some time there, returned to the Madras area. Apparently his renewed ministry outraged the Brahmins, who were fearful lest Christianity undermine their social caste system. So according to the Syriac version of the Acts of Thomas, Mazdai, the local king at Mylapore, after questioning the Apostle condemned him to death about the year AD 72. Anxious to avoid popular excitement, the King ordered Thomas conducted to a nearby mountain, where, after being allowed to pray, he was then stoned and stabbed to death with a lance wielded by an angry Brahmin. Sri Lanka Christianity was introduced to Sri Lanka in the 1st century (72 AD). Possibly after the apostle Thomas' visit to India. The Anuradhapura cross is an ancient recorded symbol of Christianity in the island. Oriental Orthodoxy was the majority branch of Christianity before the arrival of the Portuguese. Roman Catholicism was introduced by the Portuguese invasion of Ceylon in the 16th century. With the Dutch colonial period seeing a percentage of church members in excess of 10–20%. Expansion of Nestorian Christianity (431–1360 AD) In 410 the Sassanid emperor summoned the Persian church leaders to the Synod of Seleucia. His purpose was to make the Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon the minority leader of the Christians in the Empire, and personally responsible for their good conduct throughout the Persian empire. The synod accepted the emperor's wish. In 424 the bishops of Persia met in council under the leadership of Catholicos Dadiso and determined that there would be no reference of their disciplinary or theological problems to any other power, especially not to any church council in the Roman Empire. The formal separation from the See of Antioch and the western Syrian Church under the Roman (Byzantine) Emperors, occurred at this synod in 424. Nestorianism The eastern development of Christianity continued to separate from the west, pushed along by such events as 431's Council of Ephesus, in which the Syrian bishop Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople since 428, was accused of heresy for preaching his brand of Christianity, labelled Nestorianism after him. He and his followers were banished from the Byzantine Empire, and other religious and political institutions gave him sanctuary. Eastern Christianity seceded to form the Church of the