The Malabar Christians, also known as the Thomas Christians, live in southwest coastal India in the district of Cochin and Travancore. Tradition has it they were originally evangelized by Thomas the Apostle.
Today they form three groups:
- The Catholics whom the Portuguese converted from Nestorianism in 1599.
- The Malankarese, who have been Catholic since 1930.
- The Jacobites, or Monophysites, who rejected the Council of Chalcedon.