But a word needs to be said about the so-called Church of St. Thomas in Malabar. Although Malabar Christians love to trace the origin of their Church to St. Thomas the Apostle, it seems more probable that it was founded by Nestorian missionaries when their activities extended over a great part of Asia. At any rate, they were once Nestorians. At a later period most of them became Monophysites. Now, however, the majority of them are in communion with Rome under the name “Uniates of Malabar,” with a peculiar rite of their own called the “Rite of Malabar.” The different Churches which have engaged our attention in the preceding pages and which cannot fail to enlist the interest of the observant traveler in the Orient, suggest at least two questions which demand an answer. What was originally the real cause of these schismatic organizations which have no communion with one another? And how explain the tenacity with which each of them, during more than fourteen centuries, has clung to its peculiar rites and customs and liturgies, and despite all the vicissitudes of war and conquest, has preserved them intact to the present day? In answer to the first part of the question it is usually asserted that the cause of each of the dissident Churches in question was some specific heresy. This is the truth but, as history proves, it is not the whole truth. Misunderstanding, deception, national jealousies and aspirations had probably as much--if not more--to do with the separation of these Churches from Rome as the particular heresies with which they are usually associated.