Holy Apostle Thomas

Called Didymus, 'the Twin,' Thomas appears in John's Gospel as blunt and wholehearted: ready to go and die with Christ at Bethany, honest enough to say 'we do not know where you are going,' and absent on Pascha evening, refusing to believe without touching the wounds. Eight days later the risen Christ offered him exactly that, and Thomas answered with the highest confession in the Gospels: 'My Lord and my God.' The Church insists his doubt served faith — 'O good unbelief of Thomas,' sing the hymns of Thomas Sunday. Ancient tradition sends him east to Parthia and India; the third-century Acts of Thomas is legendary in its details, but the living tradition of the St Thomas Christians of Kerala, who trace their church to his preaching on the Malabar coast, is old and tenacious. He is said to have been speared to death near Mylapore.