All attempts to bring together the two wings of the Thomas Christians had failed. The two groups continued in separation, curiously interconnected by ties of relationship and sometimes of friendship, but distinct in allegiance and in some of their habits and ways of doing things. The end of the period 1786–1858 found them yet more deeply divided by further influences from the West, the coming of which had not been foreseen in the eighteenth century.

THE ROMO-SYRIANS

The worthy plan of the Portuguese to provide an Indian bishop for the Serra had been frustrated by the untimely death of Archbishop Kariyaṭṭil in 1786, before he had even taken charge of his diocese of Cranganore. The natural successor seemed to be present in the person of the administrator Thomas Pareamakkal, who had accompanied Archbishop Kariyaṭṭil on his journey and had written an account of it. But the authorities apparently felt that he was not the right man to hold this high office. This judgement seems to be confirmed by a letter from the bishop of Cochin to the archbishop of Goa, dated 29 October 1792, in which it is stated that Pareamakal (this is his spelling of the name) is intriguing against the padroado and the archbishop in vengeance for the failure to appoint him as archbishop of Cranganore. No further appointment of an Indian bishop was made for more than a century.