Christianity in India

Saint Bartholomew, one of the Twelve Apostles landed^[7] in Maharashtra and began his mission in Kalyan^[8] and was followed by Saint Thomas^[7] who landed in Gujarat during the reign of King Gondophares^[9] and initiated the Gospel in parts of Bharuch^[10] and Taxila before traveling southward to Kerala in 52 A.D. where he won many converts and established many churches, eventually traveling to Tamil Nadu where he was martyred in 72 A.D. After centuries of inactivity, the missions were again revived with the arrival of Saint Francis Xavier in 1542 followed by Robert de Nobili in 1605 who arrived in Goa on the western coast. The first Protestant missionaries arrived in 1706 with Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau of the Lutheran Missions who landed at Tranquebar on the eastern coast of Tamil Nadu. However, the modern missions began to take shape only with the arrival of the Baptist Missions in 1793 led by William Carey, the Father of the Modern Missionary Movement.^[11]

It was with this background^[12] that Jawaharlal Nehru,^[13] the first Prime Minister of India remarked in a parliamentary debate in 1955^[14] in the Lok Sabha that,

"Christianity in India is as old as Christianity itself."

Christianity in Telangana

Catholic missionaries first set foot in the erstwhile Hyderabad State in 1535^[2] during the sixteenth century followed by the American Methodist missions in 1873,^[2] the Baptist missions in 1875,^[2] the Mennonite Brethren missions then followed by the Wesleyan Methodist missions in 1878^[15][2] during the nineteenth century.

The beginnings of the church

Once the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society set foot in the erstwhile Hyderabad State in 1878,^[2] the missionaries led by Henry Little, William Burgess and the Indian Evangelist Benjamin Wesley^[2] who pioneered the spread of the Gospel and helped in establishing of churches in areas northward of Hyderabad City winning of new converts to the fold of Christianity.

Meanwhile, efforts were made by visionary Pastors to form the Church of South India for which missionary societies came forward for negotiations who included^[16] Anglicans, Baptists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, and Wesleyan Methodists. However, the talks towards Church Union did not go well with the laymen hailing from the Baptists and the Lutherans in spite of efforts by their Clergy^[17] led by Professor Muthyala Theophilus, CBCNC and William Powlas Peery, AELC^[18] to join the Church of South India. Meanwhile in 1923,^[19] the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society participated in the negotiations towards Church union and formally agreed to join the Church of South India in 1947 and Frank Whittaker became the first Bishop of the Diocese of Medak.

The CSI and aftermath

From 1947 onward, the church came under the Church of South India overseen by a Bishop residing in Medak, the ecclesiastical headquarters of the Diocese of Medak and was overseen by Bishops beginning with Frank Whittaker. The Bishops used to appoint Pastors to lead the congregations in Christian love and faith so that the Christians lead selfless lives and set example for others. The Clergy consisted of Pastors who had theological grounding under able scholars in seminaries either at the Andhra Christian Theological College or at the United Theological College, Bangalore.^[2] The church also had visiting preachers from the nearby seminary, the Andhra Christian Theological College as well as other non-CSI churches in the city.