Thoma I

What is told of him here comes from an opponent, the Carmelite Giuseppe Sebastiani, whom the pope sent to Malabar and whose book was printed in 1666. Sebastiani calls him Thomè de Campos, says that he succeeded his uncle George of the Cross as archdeacon, and describes him as restless and often at odds with the Jesuit archbishop Francisco Garcia (Sebastiani, Prima speditione book 1, ch. 1 (p. 3)). After the people had sworn at Mattancherry never again to acknowledge Garcia, they put themselves under the archdeacon’s government (Sebastiani, Prima speditione book 1, ch. 2 (p. 4)). At a later assembly twelve priests consecrated him bishop, on the authority of a letter that Sebastiani calls forged, and Sebastiani says that all but a few churches accepted him (Sebastiani, Prima speditione book 1, ch. 2 (pp. 5–6)). Sebastiani calls him “the intruder”, and the declaration he had priests sign in 1657 holds that no one can be a true bishop who has not been consecrated by a bishop with the pope’s leave (Sebastiani, Prima speditione book 2, ch. 13 (pp. 136–137)).

The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church says that after the oath the church ordained the archdeacon a bishop with the name Mar Thoma I, and that bishops of that name led it from 1653 to 1816 (Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, History The Catholicate, section ‘The Archdeacon as Bishop’). See the Synod of Diamper and the Coonan Cross Oath.