Revering Armenian Heritage on the Coromandel Coast

Waheeda Bi khan

Revering Armenian Heritage on the Coromandel Coast

Thousands of years ago, from the highlands of West Asia arrived some traders, traversing the Hindukhush mountains in search of silk, spices, and gems. The Armenians settled here, blending their history with this land, testaments of which survive even today in the artefacts and religious structures like the St Mary’s Armenian Church of Chennai.

The Armenian Church of Madras in 1905, Source: Wikipedia

Thousands of years ago, from the highlands of West Asia arrived some traders, traversing the Hindukhush mountains in search of silk, spices, and gems. The Armenians settled here, blending their history with this land, testaments of which survive even today in the artefacts and religious structures like the St Mary’s Armenian Church of Chennai.

The rich Indian tales of travellers and traders from foreign lands across the mountain passes in the north and the sea routes in the peninsular part of our subcontinent include visitors from the present-day Armenia. They were part of the trading network of ancient India as per the historical records of Xenophon’s Persian expeditions Cyropaedia. One of the famous Armenians who reached the Malabar coast in the eighth-century Chera dynasty, according to the Delhi Directory of 1956, was the merchant Thomas Cana, who traded extensively in spices and muslin. He brought with him the small community of Syriac Orthodox Christians to Kerala. In the fifteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire ousted the Romans to reclaim their lands, the community of Armenians also dispersed to different kingdoms.

A group of them reached our lands during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar and, with his grant, settled in Agra. They later spread to various parts of the undivided subcontinent and soon formed enclosed settlements for themselves while serving the kingdoms in which they lived as generals, gunsmiths, merchants, mercenaries, and so on. The community settled in colonies and was allowed to build its own churches like the St Mary’s Church built in the British settlements of Madras. Today, in post-independent India, Armenians are a part of our citizenship and live as peaceful and closely-knit communities in Mumbai, Surat, Agra, Kanpur, Kolkata, Chennai, and other places.

The city of Chennai is a wonderful amalgamation of digital lifestyles and orthodox traditions, intricately threaded faiths of different religions, uber facades and ancient structures, commercial hub and devotional purity, all at once. Amidst this bustling city lived the small community of prosperous Armenians who had settled here in 1512 as part of the agreement with the British East India Company. An Armenian resident merchant of London Julfan was instrumental in the incentivised treaty signed on behalf of the Armenian nation in London in 1688. In a bid to overpower the Portuguese and French traders, the British preferred to trade with Armenians who had a natural flair for business rather than their fellow European trading companies. The treaty accorded special privileges to the Armenians and gave them unrestricted access to civil offices, religion, residence, and freedom of travel, equivalent to British subjects. The Armenians worked as employees of the British East India Company and enjoyed many special privileges over the local Indians or any other Europeans.

The first structure of the church was built in 1712 in the Esplanade of Madras but was soon destroyed when the French captured Madras for a short period. Later, the current church was consecrated in 1772 in an old burial ground belonging to Agah Shameer that had a chapel. The new church was initially built of timber but later remodelled to the present single-storey complex, with frangipani trees and cobblestone pathways on either side. The interior has a chessboard-style floor design, while the altar depicts Mother Mary leading Jesus Christ to heaven and the walls display many religious paintings. The church once had an extensive and rare archive of old manuscripts. The ageing bells in the belfry have inscriptions with dates and the donors who established them. The inscriptions show that two bells were established in 1837 and the donor was Thomas Mears of London, while another pair was gifted by an Armenian merchant named Eliazar Shawmier.

At present, only five resident Armenians in Chennai remain who gather in its prayer hall on Christmas. These few have stayed back because they are married to Indians. Almost all descendants of the old families have migrated to either different parts of Europe or their motherland Armenia, which was the first country that declared itself a Christian nation. The church is maintained by the Armenian Church Committee of Calcutta, and the funding is overlooked by the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The around-two-and-a-half-centuries-old St Mary’s Church in the Parrys locality of George Town in Chennai is one of the oldest Armenian churches in India. The church functions now as just a heritage site and is unique for its adjacent structure hosting the belfry with six bells of varying sizes weighing 150 kg each, arranged in three rows. Part of the Armenian history is grounded in the church, hosting around 350 Armenian ancestors resting in their graves, of which the oldest is dated 1663. The founder-editor of Azdara, the world’s first Armenian journal, Rev Harutyun Shmavonyan, the father of Armenian Journalism and vicar for forty years, also rests in peace under the shade of this church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The dwindling community of Armenians may leave a void in the varied diaspora of Chennai, yet their ancestral legacy of almost six centuries will always be preserved and revered in the churchyard. The streams narrating the story of Armenian settlers in India will forever continue through their little communities, cuisine, and churches like the St Mary’s Armenian Church.