What I Learned From a Lineage of Spiritual Proximity
My grandmother used to say we came from Syrian Christians, an ancient Indian Christian community.
As a child, I assumed she meant by blood.
So when I got my 23andMe results and saw no trace of Syrian ancestry, I was a little dejected.
But then I noticed something else—a Malayali subgroup.
And with it, a flicker of recognition:
A connection to her roots was still there.
Just not in the way I had imagined.
I learned what she had always known:
Being Nazrani—part of the ancient Saint Thomas Christian tradition—was never about genetics.
It was about inheritance of a different kind.
The term “Syrian Christian” doesn’t refer to ethnicity.
It refers to something more ancient—and more intimate.
The Syriac Christian tradition is an early branch of Christianity that worshipped in the language of Jesus—Syriac.
It passed down faith through story, relationship, and reverence—not through conquest or creed.
They weren’t Syrian by bloodline.
They were Christians from India, rooted in Kerala—
with a lineage traced not to Rome or Europe, but to the Apostle Thomas,
believed to have arrived on the Malabar Coast around 52 CE.
They practiced Christianity centuries before the Portuguese brought colonial doctrines and hierarchies.
They worshipped in Syriac, prayed in homes and small communities,
and blended Christian belief with Indian rhythms—
deeply rooted, resilient, and uniquely their own.
A Spiritual Thread Across Many Worlds
I wasn’t raised in a Nazrani household.
My upbringing was layered—Protestant in faith, Catholic in schooling, and secular in higher education.
I came of age in places that didn’t always align, but together, they formed me.
Hyderabad taught me diversity.
Wilkes-Barre taught me survival.
Fort Worth gave me structure.
Chicago offered synthesis.
These shifts didn’t scatter me.
They clarified me.
They taught me that the soul can remain whole, even as its setting changes.
Because across them all, one quiet thread kept surfacing:
A way of knowing Christ not through doctrine or spectacle,
but through presence.
And it brought me back to something I hadn’t named until now—
the quiet echo of my Nazrani roots.
What stayed with me most was how my grandmother knew Jesus—
not as a distant savior, but a person. A healer and teacher.
Someone who helped the human spirit move toward the divine.
In that way, he reminded me of the Indian deities I grew up around—
divine figures in human form, guiding us toward union with something greater.
It was through that lens that I began to understand something deeper:
That all faith is, at its core, the same spiritual energy—
regardless of the name, the story, or the tradition that carries it.
At the time, I didn’t think much of it.
But now I see it for what it was:
A quiet echo of a spiritual lineage I carry—
not in my DNA, but in my being.
Faith That Doesn’t Need a Stage
For many Nazrani families—including mine—faith wasn’t performed in public.
It lived in kitchens.
In stories.
In morning prayers and quiet blessings.
It was domestic. Personal. Steady.
While the broader Nazrani tradition did have bishops, liturgies, and an organized church structure—
what I inherited was something less formal and more intimate.
There wasn’t always a need to explain it.
It was just there.
What I received wasn’t a checklist of beliefs.
It was a posture:
Follow Christ.
Not the institution.
Not the show.
Not the noise.
Just the life.
That’s the Christ my grandmother passed down to me.
And even though I didn’t grow up thinking of myself as “Nazrani,”
I realize now that I carry that spirit—deeply.
Not Just Mine: A Global Longing
The more I reflected on this quiet, relational faith,
the more I began to notice something beyond myself:
others across the world were reaching for that same kind of spiritual intimacy—
less institutional, more embodied,
more rooted in presence than performance.
What’s surprised me most in adulthood is realizing this experience isn’t unique.
Across the world, people from ancient spiritual traditions are saying something similar:
• In Indigenous communities, ancestors and spirits of the land aren’t myths—they’re kin.
• In Eastern Orthodoxy, faith is transformation, not just salvation.
• In African Christianities, Christ is healer, elder, liberator.
• Even in post-Christian Western societies, people are seeking the sacred without spectacle—
outside hierarchy, beyond showmanship.
So when I speak of the Nazranis, it’s not to claim a special status—
but to name a spiritual thread that many across the world are also holding.
The thread of faith as presence, not performance.
Of wisdom as relationship, not rules.
Of names and stories that didn’t need to be famous to be real.
More Than a Name. A Grounding.
I don’t know all the theology of the Nazranis.
I couldn’t quote their councils or creeds.
But I know the feeling they left in me.
A sense that Christ was never meant to be distant.
That holiness doesn’t need volume.
That faith can be lived in the ordinary—
and maybe that’s what makes it sacred.
That my grandmother’s quiet prayers were never small—
they were sacred.
So when I say I carry my Nazrani roots, I don’t mean it as an identity badge.
I mean it as a grounding.
As a way of remembering that Christ walked. And lived. And loved.
And invited us to do the same.
Even now, that invitation remains.
For Me, and For the Future
I didn’t begin this river.
But it runs through me now.
And how I carry it—gently, intentionally—
is how I honor what came before
and care for what flows after.