Thachil Mathoo Tharakan
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Thachil Mathoo Tharakan (1741 - 1814) was a landlord, trader and influential Christian leader, among the Syrian Christians of Kerala, India, during the latter part of 18th and early 19th centuries. He was a timber and spices merchant and is reportedly the first timber exporter from Southern India. He controlled the exports from Alappuzha and Cochin ports. He was also the forest minister to Maharajah Marthanda Varma of Travancore and had a guest house and land in Trivandrum.
In the wake of the Koonan Kurisu Declaration Coonan Cross Oath (1653) that resulted in the separation of the Jacobite Orthodox Syrians from the Syrian Catholics in Kerala, Thachil Mathoo Tharakan made attempts at reunion, but his efforts were thwarted by the Portuguese. His efforts had the support of Bishop Joseph Kariattil of the Syrian Catholics and the support of Bishop Mar Dionysius I of the Jacobite faction. But Bishop Kariattil's untimely and mysterious death in Goa and Rome's silence, ultimately led to the Jacobites remaining separate as Syrian Christians and the Syrian Catholics accepting the jurisdiction of the Latin Bishops in India.
Mathoo Tharakan's ancestral homes in Alappuzha and Ezhupunna on the Vembanad Lake, are now converted into heritage homes, by his grand children, belonging to the Parayil Tharakan family of Ezhupunna, Alappuzha District, Kerala.
M.O.Joseph Nedumkunnam wrote a biography of Mathoo Tharakan, and the book is titled 'Thachil Mathoo Tharakan'.
[edit] References
- Francis Thonippara, 'Saint Thomas Christians of India--a period of struggle for unity and self-rule, 1775-1787,
- M.O. Joseph Nedumkunnam, Thachil Mathu Tharakan, (Malayalam) Kottayam, NBS, 1962,
