Telugu Christians

Most Telugu Christians are Protestant, belonging to major Indian Protestant denominations such as the predominant United Protestant Church of South India, Pentecostals such as Assemblies of God in India, India Pentecostal Church of God, The Pentecostal Mission, the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches, the Salvation Army and several others. There also are significant numbers of Roman Catholics and Evangelicals. The Franciscans of the Roman Catholic Church brought Christianity to the Deccan area in 1535, and after 1759 AD, when the Northern Circars came under the rule of the East India Company, the region opened up to greater Christian influence.

The first Protestant missionaries in Andhra Pradesh were two clergymen named Cran and Des Granges who were sent by the London Missionary Society and set up their station at Visakhapatnam in 1805 AD. Regions with significant populations of Telugu Christians include the erstwhile Northern Circars, the coastal belt and the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Telugu Christians have one of the highest literacy and work participation figures and most even male-to-female ratio figures among the various religious communities in the state.

History and spread

Northern Circars and Coastal Belt regions

The first convert to Christianity in Andhra Pradesh was Thumma Hanumantha Reddy, also known as Manda Reddy. Manda Reddy, along with thirty Reddy families of Muddiguba and some other Reddy families in Alamuru, embraced Christianity in 1715. In the Rayalaseema region, many Reddys began visiting churches and converted to Christianity (Catholics). By 1735, in South Andhra, there were thousands of Christians, most of whom belonged to the Reddy and other traditional weaver communities. Many reddys in Guntur district have converted in to Roman Catholisim, Reddy who converted to Roman Catholics still kept some the Hindu traditions like thali, bottu, some the Catholic reddys have migrated Telangana via krishna river in Telangana they named their village names has Guntur pally, Reddypuram or Reddypallem. By 1750, Christianity further spread to the Circar Districts due to the migration of Christian Reddys into those areas. In the early 18th century many Catholic Reddys had migrated from Rayalaseema to some parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Telangana. They started Catholic churches to support Christian missionaries.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, missionaries from most major denominations started arriving in the Andhra region. Established in 1805, the London Missionary Society was the first Protestant mission in Andhra Pradesh which had its station at Visakhapatnam. The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists who were largely Congregationalist in outlook. George Crann and Augustus Des Granges were the first batch of missionaries that was sent out by the London Missionary Society to Andhra Pradesh in 1804. They arrived in Visakhapatnam on 18 July 1805 and began learning the Telugu language. They mastered it in a short time and began translating parts of the New Testament. In the next three years, the four Gospels were published. Their work was halted with the deaths of George Crann in 1809 and of Des Granges in 1810. A new batch of missionaries, Revs. Lee, Gordon and Pritchett took over the work done by their predecessors. The first complete New Testament in Telugu was printed in Madras.

Baptist missions

The American Baptist Mission and Godavari Delta Mission established their stations in 1836. They were followed by Church Missionary Society in 1841 and the then American Lutheran Mission in 1842. British colonial officers, Eurasians, and the likely presence of a few native Christian families has made missionary activity a possibility in these early years. Telugu Baptist pastors like Puroshottam Choudhary and Das Anthervedy from the Telugu-speaking districts of Madras Presidency.

Amos Sutton was the first British Baptist missionary to preach in the region. He was sent by the Serampore Mission. He preached in the northernmost parts of Andhra in 1805 but failed to achieve his objectives, and he did not venture again into the region, confining his ministry instead to the Oriya-speaking districts. Sutton, however, persisted in his vision for the Telugus. Later, Sutton's marriage to an American Baptist missionary widow connected him with the American Baptists. While visiting his relatives in the United States in 1835, he urged the Baptist convention in Virginia to take over the "abandoned" work among the Telugus. Responding to his plea, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Board sent Samuel S. Day, a Canadian-born American, as their missionary in 1835. He arrived in Visakhapatnam in 1836 and searched for four years for a suitable place to start a mission station before finally finding one in Nellore. This lay the foundations of the Canadian Baptist Mission.

The Canadian Baptist Mission (CBM) was established in 1850. Lyman Jewett in 1848 and John E. Clough in 1865 joined the mission stations at Nellore, Ongole and south Kanigiri. Canadian Baptist Missionaries quickly identified the possibility of holistic transformation of the Telugu society through education, and they found women to be potential agents of change. Missionary Mary McLaurin, in 1875, founded a school for boys and the next year founded one for girls. Missionaries of the Canadian Baptist Mission founded the Convention of Baptist Churches of Northern Circars (CBCNC) as the mission's successor in Andhra Pradesh.

Lutheran missions

The first Lutheran missionary in Andhra was John Christian Frederick Heyer who arrived in the year 1842 AD. His wife and children remained in Friedens, Somerset County, Pennsylvania where Mrs. Mary Heyer died in 1839. The following year, Heyer was asked to enter the foreign missions. He studied Sanskrit and medicine in Baltimore, and set sail for India from Boston in 1841 with three other missionary couples on the ship Brenda. Returning to the United States in 1845, he continued his missionary work and established St. John's Church in Baltimore. At the same time, he studied medicine, and obtained his M.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1847.

He travelled to India a second time in 1847, spending a decade, mainly in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh state, in southern India, where he ministered and performed yeoman service to the people there. Supported initially by the Pennsylvania Ministerium, and later by the Foreign Mission Board of the General Synod, Heyer was also encouraged and assisted by British government officials. He established a number of hospitals and a network of schools throughout the Guntur region. The two prominent Lutheran missions in Coastal Andhra were the Guntur Mission pioneered by John Christian Frederick Heyer of the Pennsylvania Synod Society and the Rajahmundry Mission established by Rev. Luis P. Manno Valett of North German Missionary Society in July 1845. In 1927 the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church was constituted with the merger of both these missions.

The history of the South Andhra Lutheran Church can be dated back to the year 1865 when Rev. August Mylius of the Hermaunsburg Evangelical Lutheran Mission (HELM), Germany began his evangelistic work in the southern part of Andhra i.e. the present districts of Nellore, Prakasham and Chittoor. World War I forced the German missionaries to leave India in 1915. In 1920, after a period of five years, the American missionaries from Ohio Lutheran Evangelical Mission (OLEM) took charge of the abruptly ended work of the German missionaries. Later in 1929 the church governance was taken over by the American Lutheran Church. The year of Indian Independence (1947) was also the birth year of the South Andhra Lutheran Church.

The famous British officer Arthur Cotton worked alongside missionaries like Rev. Henry Fox of the Church Mission Society, Mr. Bowden (SPG) of the Godavari Delta Mission, the Lutherans and Baptists. On Sundays the labour camps where Arthur Cotton supervised resounded with the singing of Christian hymns, songs in various languages such as Telugu, Tamil, and Tribal dialects. Major Cotton himself spoke in many such meetings. He and his staff worked to set a personal example of service and Christian living to the new converts. Therefore, the spread of Christianity in the coastal Andhra area could be attributed to the efforts of Arthur Cotton.

Telangana regions

Wesleyan Methodist missions

Sir Arthur Cotton, a British engineer with the help of two missionaries E.E Jenkins & George Fryar travelled in the Telangana regions. They were responsible for starting work in Sironcha in 1863. The Church Missionary Society started its work in Aurangabad in 1860, which was then part of the Nizam's dominions. Later on William Taylor, a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church triggered a great revival in Hyderabad during the years 1872–1874. The work began in Hyderabad as "Hindustani Mission". Meanwhile, the Methodist Missionary Society began its work as "Godavari Mission" which is named after the river. After fifteen years of thorough survey, in 1879 missionaries Henry Little and William Burgess came to Secunderabad from Madras.

William S. Burgess was the founder of the Wesleyan Mission in Hyderabad. The Tamil congregation of the Church of Scotland Mission was handed over to them in 1880 and it became the first native Indian Wesleyan Congregation in Secunderabad, which later moved into its new building in Clock Tower. He laid the foundations of missionary work by organising the migrant Telugu Christians as well as new converts in centres like Chilkalguda, Musheerabad, Market Street as part of the main church in Clock tower as Wesley Church pastorate, Secunderabad. The first congregation in Secunderabad being of Tamil origin, the Church of Scotland Mission, Madras continued to provide Pastors to serve in the Clock Tower Church for a couple of decades. In Hyderabad the Missionaries appointed a Telugu Christian by name Joseph Cornelius in whose house in Boggulagunta, Ramkote Telugu service was held with the help of the Indian Evangelist Benjamin Wesley December 1879. The present Wesley Girls School in Secunderabad with its attached missionary bungalow was purchased in 1884.

William S. Burgess stayed with his family in a dak bungalow as there was no house ready for accommodation. There were no churches to receive him. He began his work first with British soldiers. He was assisted in his work by his Indian counterpart Mr. Joseph Cornelius. The first baptism was administered by Burgess on 25 January 1880. His first convert was Andrew, son of Chakkariah, who is one of the forerunners of many Christians in the Medak Diocese. Burgess rode on horse-back, much like John Wesley, preaching in the Telangana regions. As the Telugu congregation was growing a church was constructed in the Sultan Bazaar area in 1910. Later in 1927 a foundation stone was laid to construct a large church in Ramkote which is the existing Wesley Church, Ramkote which was dedicated by Rev. Charles Walker Posnett in 1931.

The Madras Synod sent Rev. Benjamin P. Wesley to help the Burgesses. He came from Cuddapah and was a well-educated man. Benjamin P. Wesley was ordained as a Wesleyan Minister in 1882. Rev. Benjamin P. Wesley along with Mrs. Burgess set about establishing educational institutions in and around Hyderabad and Secunderabad. In 1882, Burgess bought some shops which he used to set up side rooms for a school. Another missionary Rev. Benjamin Pratt also arrived in 1880. These trio Burgess, Pratt and Benjamin Wesley used to travel on cart, and bullock bandies to preach in the surrounding areas. Pratt surveyed Karimnagar area, following which he established the Wesleyan headquarters there. This laid the foundations of the current Karimnagar diocese of the Church of South India. During those days the district headquarters was located near Ellagandala, which was eight miles away from Karimnagar. Around the same time, Benjamin Wesley made Siddipet his headquarters, laying the foundations for the diocese of Medak, where later the cathedral at Medak was built. The regions of Hyderabad and Secunderabad were ministered by the Burgesses.

Anglican missions

Rev. Charles Walker Posnett (the builder of the great Cathedral at Medak) arrived in Secunderabad in 1895. He first ministered among the British soldiers at Trimulgherry. Unsatisfied with the army work, he launched forth into villages. In the year 1896, Rev. Charles Walker Posnett visited a village called Medak and built a bungalow there by staying in a dock bungalow. There were then hardly two hundred Christians in the whole of Medak area. There was no railway route to Medak in those days. The journey of 60 miles (97 km) from Hyderabad had to be done on horseback and Rev. Posnett usually did it in a day. When he came to Medak, there was a small tiled house as the place of worship. Rev.Posnett soon raised a moderate structure on that very spot just enough for the Christian community within the Mission Compound in the traditional shape of a church. He thought it was not a worthy place for worshiping his Lord Jesus Christ. He began building the present Medak Cathedral in 1914 on a sprawling 1,000 acres (4.0 km²) of land in the Ghusnabad area. He built the cathedral during a famine. The starving villagers were provided food in return for their services towards building the cathedral.

The Diocese of Dornakal was founded on 29 December 1912, when the Rev. Vedanaygam Samuel Azariah was consecrated its first Bishop in St. Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta. The real significance of the ceremony lay in the fact that Bishop Azariah was the first Indian to be consecrated a Bishop of the Anglican Communion. When it was first formed in 1912, the Diocese of Dornakal was quite a small diocese in the south-east corner of the Nizam's Dominions. A few years later it was enlarged by the addition of the District of Dummagudem, in which the Church Mission Society was working. Then came a Resolution of the Episcopal Synod in the year 1920, which transformed this comparatively small diocese into a diocese which has now probably as large, if not a larger number of Anglican Indian Christians than any other in India. By this resolution all the Mission Districts of both the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in the Telugu country, were placed under the Episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Dornakal. This means that the present Diocese of Dornakal includes a large portion of the Krishna district, together with the part of the Godavari district named Dummagudem; parts of the Kurnool and Cuddapah districts to the south occupied by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; also the areas in the Hyderabad State occupied by the Indian Missionary Society of Tinnevelly, the Singareni Mission, the Khammamett Mission (formerly under the Church Missionary Society), and the then recently formed Dornakal Diocesan Mission.

Catholicism

The Franciscans of the Catholic Church brought Catholicism to the Deccan Area in 1535. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Hyderabad was only formed in 1886. A study of the social background of the Telugu Christians of the 18th century reveals that the majority of Telugu Roman Catholics came from two great communities of farmers. According to the French Jesuits, the Telugu Christians were fervent Christians. Christians and Hindus got along fairly peacefully.

The Christian sanyasis of Andhra worked with the permission of the local authorities, which enabled them to spread the gospel with the greatest possible freedom. The relations between the French and the Nizam and his nawabs were on the whole cordial enough.

The Muslim authorities tended to favour and protect the 'Roman Fakirs' and their disciples. The Christian contribution to culture and scientific studies was considerable. Apart from preaching the gospel, the French priests evinced keen interest in scientific study, especially in the field of mathematics and astronomy. Most of them were trained mathematicians, and some even in astronomy. They knew Telugu well, and some even knew Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi and Hindustani. A fairly large number of Christian writings in Telugu belonging to the 18th century have survived. In c. 1735, one of the priests gave a text of the Gospel of St John to the Palayakar of Kottakotta. A history of the Old Testament called Purva Vedam, Rajula Charitra, Amrutham Bhavan, and a life of Christ were among the writings that were revered by the Telugu Roman Catholics. There were some apologetic, catechetical and theological writings such as Nistara Ratnakaramu (Ocean of Salvation), Anitya Nitya Vivastam (Difference between the Temporal and the Eternal) and Vedanta Saramu (Essence of Theology). Sanskrit prayers were translated into Telugu; so also many popular poems were produced. There were many writings on linguistics. Fr G L Coeurdoux (died 1799) is the author of a Telugu-Sanskrit-French dictionary, and of a French-Telugu and Telugu-French dictionary. Fr Pierre de la Lane (died 1746) wrote a Telugu grammar in c. 1729, and also a Telugu dictionary entitled Amara Sinham. A number of Jesuit missionaries studied Sanskrit as it contained all the philosophical writings of Hinduism. A number of Jesuit missionaries were keen on observations and experiments in astronomy, among whom the names of Le Gac, Ducros, Duchamp, Gargam and Calmette stand out. Geography and Geology were included in their field of scientific interest. The description of Gargan's journey of September- November 1730 through the southern districts of Andhra and information on geology, such as the quarries of Cambam and the diamond mines of the eastern side of Terramula, were of special interest.

Post independence

Following the Indian Independence in 1947, all properties that belonged to the erstwhile missions and churches that were part of British cantonments in the region of Andhra Pradesh were bequeathed to Telugu Christians. Several major denominations were also formed during this period.

The Church of South India, the result of the union of churches of varying traditions Anglican, Methodist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Reformed was inaugurated in September 1947, after protracted negotiation among the churches concerned. In the Telugu regions, the London Missionary Society, the Society of Propagation of the Gospel, the Church Mission Society, the Church of Scotland Mission, and the Wesleyan Methodists along with several other denominations and missions came together to form part of the Church of South India. Medak Diocese was formed during the same period. It is one of the biggest dioceses in the Church of South India, comprising 1100 congregations in 71 pastorates and spread over five revenue districts of Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh state namely Adilabad, Medak, Nizamabad, Rangareddy and the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. The first Bishop of Medak Diocese was Rt. Rev. Frank Whittaker.

The existing Church of South India dioceses in the state of Andhra Pradesh are as follows:

• Dornakal Diocese
• Karimnagar Diocese
• Krishna-Godavari Diocese
• Medak Diocese
• Nandyal Diocese
• Rayalaseema Diocese

The Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church was formed in 1927. At present it spreads over 500 miles (800 km) of the Coromandel Coast (east coast of India) covering the important cities and districts in Andhra Pradesh and having a congregational membership of around 3 million in 400 parishes. It is the third largest Lutheran church in Asia.

The year of Indian independence, 1947, was also the birth year of South Andhra Lutheran Church. Since 1949 the church became independent and got all the properties and institutions from foreign missionary societies. In the present day scenario the church has 90,000 members in 44 parishes. The church runs five secondary schools, five boarding homes and hostels, couple of technical schools and institutes and a hospital.

The Convention of Baptist Churches of Northern Circars (CBCNC) is a Christian denomination in north coastal Andhra Pradesh. Missionaries of the Canadian Baptist Mission founded this denomination as its successor in Andhra Pradesh. Canadian Baptist Mission (CBM) was established by the Baptist Missionaries of Canada c. 1850. One of the well known Telugu Christian leaders, Rev. Dr. A. B. Masilamani served as the president of the CBCNC for several years.

The Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches, formed in 1962, is a registered organisation consisting of 1,214 independent Baptist churches. American Baptists started missionary work in South India among Telugu-speaking people in 1836. In 1887 the existing churches were organised into the Convention of Telugu Baptist Churches. In 1962 the convention became the Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches, with a unanimously adopted constitution. The organisation was registered in 1963. The Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches runs educational institutions, hospitals, health centres and one theological seminary, in Ramapatnam. There are five-degree colleges, eight junior colleges, 14 high schools and 14 primary schools. The interdenominational theological college at Hyderabad is affiliated with the Serampore University, Kolkata. The Samavesam has 4,500 Sunday schools with an enrolment of some 72,000 children. They claim to have a congregation of around 840,000.

Andhra Christian Theological College is a special purpose entity – an ecumenical enterprise of some of the church societies in Andhra Pradesh. It was founded in 1964 and is affiliated to the Senate of Serampore College, Serampore, West Bengal. Andhra Christian Theological College came into being as a result of the Kretzmann's Commission which suggested carving out a unified seminary out of existing century-old seminaries catering to the various Church societies in Andhra Pradesh. It was also as a result of ecumenism where a greater need for unity among the Protestant churches was felt worldwide.