From the year 1661 to the present day, the Syrian Christians of Malabar have remained a divided people. The churches which have maintained their independence of the Roman pontiff are in number fifty-seven; their number of officiating priests, commonly called catanárs, is one hundred and forty-four; and the families belonging to their churches, at the lowest computation, are reckoned at thirteen thousand five hundred, or about seventy thousand souls. They consider themselves as the true descendants of the flock established by Saint Thomas, and acknowledge the ecclesiastical authority of the patriarch of Antioch, or Mosul, from whence they continued, after their separation from the Roman Catholics, till the year 1751, to receive their metropolitan. But that ancient patriarchal authority having become nearly extinct, and incompetent to the appointment of learned men, their metropolitans have, since that period, been elected and consecrated from amongst themselves.