Introduction

Biography

After his ba­sic edu­ca­tion at [the Church of South In­dia (CSI)] Mis­sion School, Moo­le­dam, [An­drews] passed the ma­tri­cu­la­tion ex­am­ina­tion from [the] Kot­tay­am [Church Mis­sion­ary So­ci­ety (CMS)] Col­lege with good grades. Impressed by his in­tel­li­gence and ex­em­pla­ry char­ac­ter, an Eng­lish fac­to­ry own­er in Cal­cut­ta of­fered him a job with a sal­ary of Rs.100/- pm.

But he had other pri­or­ities, and ac­cept­ed the job of a Mun­shi (Mal­ay­alam Teach­er) with a sa­la­ry of Rs.9/- pm. and taught Mal­ay­al­am to the Brit­ish CMS mis­sion­ar­ies. His deep faith in God helped him look be­yond the world’s val­ue sys­tem to see the eter­nal val­ues of God’s king­dom. Lat­er he be­came an ev­an­gel­ist and had a great con­cern for [the] poor trib­al peo­ple of De­vi­ku­lam Ta­luk in Kot­tay­am Dis­trict.

In 1906, he be­came a dea­con and in 1909 a priest. Till 1935, he worked among the Mu­thu­van trib­al com­mu­ni­ty of De­vi­ku­lam. Like the New Tes­ta­ment An­drew, he in­tro­duced ma­ny to Je­sus, so he was af­fect­ion­ate­ly called…Ke­ra­la An­drew.

He was an ev­an­gel­ist of ex­cep­tion­al cour­age. He used to con­duct op­en air meet­ings dur­ing Tri­chur Pu­ram, Alu­va Shi­va­rath­ri, Gu­ru­va­yoor Tem­ple Fes­ti­val, and Eda­thu­va Pal­li Pe­ru­nal. He was se­vere­ly mis­treat­ed and tor­tured ma­ny times for his strong stand against id­ol and im­age wor­ship.

In ad­di­tion to Mal­ay­al­am, he was well versed in Eng­lish, He­brew, Greek, Sy­ri­ac, Ta­mil, and Sans­krit.

Thomas John Phil­ip Nal­loor
Used by permission