Telugu Christians or Telugu Kraistava () are ethnic-Telugus who follow Christianity. They form the third largest religious minority in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. According to the 2001 Census of India, there are over a million Christians in Andhra Pradesh, constituting around 1.51% of the state's population.
Most Telugu Christians are Protestant, belonging to major Indian Protestant denominations such as the predominant United Protestant Church of South India, Pentecostals such as Assemblies of God in India, India Pentecostal Church of God, The Pentecostal Mission, the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches, the Salvation Army and several others. There also are significant numbers of Roman Catholics and Evangelicals. The Franciscans of the Roman Catholic Church brought Christianity to the Deccan area in 1535, and after 1759 AD, when the Northern Circars came under the rule of the East India Company, the region opened up to greater Christian influence.
The first Protestant missionaries in Andhra Pradesh were two clergymen named Cran and Des Granges who were sent by the London Missionary Society and set up their station at Visakhapatnam in 1805 AD. Regions with significant populations of Telugu Christians include the erstwhile Northern Circars, the coastal belt and the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Telugu Christians have one of the highest literacy and work participation figures and most even male-to-female ratio figures among the various religious communities in the state.
History and spread
Northern Circars and Coastal Belt regions
The first convert to Christianity in Andhra Pradesh was Thumma Hanumantha Reddy, also known as Manda Reddy. Manda Reddy, along with thirty Reddy families of Muddiguba and some other Reddy families in Alamuru, embraced Christianity in 1715. In the Rayalaseema region, many Reddys began visiting churches and converted to Christianity (Catholics). By 1735, in South Andhra, there were thousands of Christians, most of whom belonged to the Reddy and other traditional weaver communities. Many reddys in Guntur district have converted in to Roman Catholisim, Reddy who converted to Roman Catholics still kept some the Hindu traditions like thali, bottu, some the Catholic reddys have migrated Telangana via krishna river in Telangana they named their village names has Guntur pally, Reddypuram or Reddypallem. By 1750, Christianity further spread to the Circar Districts due to the migration of Christian Reddys into those areas. In the early 18th century many Catholic Reddys had migrated from Rayalaseema to some parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Telangana. They started Catholic churches to support Christian missionaries.
Beginning in the nineteenth century, missionaries from most major denominations started arriving in the Andhra region. Established in 1805, the London Missionary Society was the first Protestant mission in Andhra Pradesh which had its station at Visakhapatnam. The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists who were largely Congregationalist in outlook. George Crann and Augustus Des Granges were the first batch of missionaries that was sent out by the London Missionary Society to Andhra Pradesh in 1804. They arrived in Visakhapatnam on 18 July 1805 and began learning the Telugu language. They mastered it in a short time and began translating parts of the New Testament. In the next three years, the four Gospels were published. Their work was halted with the deaths of George Crann in 1809 and of Des Granges in 1810. A new batch of missionaries, Revs. Lee, Gordon and Pritchett took over the work done by their predecessors. The first complete New Testament in Telugu was printed in Madras.
Baptist missions
The American Baptist Mission and Godavari Delta Mission established their stations in 1836. They were followed by Church Missionary Society in 1841 and the then American Lutheran Mission in 1842. British colonial officers, Eurasians, and the likely presence of a few native Christian families has made missionary activity a possibility in these early years. Telugu Baptist pastors like Puroshottam Choudhary and Das Anthervedy from the Telugu-speaking districts of Madras Presidency.
Amos Sutton was the first British Baptist missionary to preach in the region. He was sent by the Serampore Mission. He preached in the northernmost parts of Andhra in 1805 but failed to achieve his objectives, and he did not venture again into the region, confining his ministry instead to the Oriya-speaking districts. Sutton, however, persisted in his vision for the Telugus. Later, Sutton's marriage to an American Baptist missionary widow connected him with the American Baptists. While visiting his relatives in the United States in 1835, he urged the Baptist convention in Virginia to take over the "abandoned" work among the Telugus. Responding to his plea, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Board sent Samuel S. Day, a Canadian-born American, as their missionary in 1835. He arrived in Visakhapatnam in 1836 and searched for four years for a suitable place to start a mission station before finally finding one in Nellore. This lay the foundations of the Canadian Baptist Mission.
The Canadian Baptist Mission (CBM) was established in 1850. Lyman Jewett in 1848 and John E. Clough in 1865 joined the mission stations at Nellore, Ongole and south Kanigiri. Canadian Baptist Missionaries quickly identified the possibility of holistic transformation of the Telugu society through education, and they found women to be potential agents of change. Missionary Mary McLaurin, in 1875, founded a school for boys and the next year founded one for girls. Missionaries of the Canadian Baptist Mission founded the Convention of Baptist Churches of Northern Circars (CBCNC) as the mission's successor in Andhra Pradesh.
Lutheran missions The first Lutheran missionary in Andhra was John Christian Frederick Heyer who arrived in the year 1842 AD. His wife and children remained in Friedens, Somerset County, Pennsylvania where Mrs. Mary Heyer died in 1839. The following year, Heyer was asked to enter the foreign missions. He studied Sanskrit and medicine in Baltimore, and set sail for India from Boston in 1841 with three other missionary couples on the ship Brenda. Returning to the United States in 1845, he continued his missionary work and established St. John's Church in Baltimore. At the same time, he studied medicine, and obtained his M.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1847.
He travelled to India a second time in 1847, spending a decade, mainly in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh state, in southern India, where he ministered and performed yeoman service to the people there. Supported initially by the Pennsylvania Ministerium, and later by the Foreign Mission Board of the General Synod, Heyer was also encouraged and assisted by British government officials. He established a number of hospitals and a network of schools throughout the Guntur region. The two prominent Lutheran missions in Coastal Andhra were the Guntur Mission pioneered by John Christian Frederick Heyer of the Pennsylvania Synod Society and the Rajahmundry Mission established by Rev. Luis P. Manno Valett of North German Missionary Society in July 1845. In 1927 the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church was constituted with the merger of both these missions.
The history of the South Andhra Lutheran Church can be dated back to the year 1865 when Rev. August Mylius of the Hermaunsburg Evangelical Lutheran Mission (HELM), Germany began his evangelistic work in the southern part of Andhra i.e. the present districts of Nellore, Prakasham and Chittoor. World War I forced the German missionaries to leave India in 1915. In 1920, after a period of five years, the American missionaries from Ohio Lutheran Evangelical Mission (OLEM) took charge of the abruptly ended work of the German missionaries. Later in 1929 the church governance was taken over by the American Lutheran Church. The year of Indian Independence (1947) was also the birth year of the South Andhra Lutheran Church.
The famous British officer Arthur Cotton worked alongside missionaries like Rev. Henry Fox of the Church Mission Society, Mr. Bowden (SPG) of the Godavari Delta Mission, the Lutherans and Baptists. On Sundays the labour camps where Arthur Cotton supervised resounded with the singing of Christian hymns, songs in various languages such as Telugu, Tamil, and Tribal dialects. Major Cotton himself spoke in many such meetings. He and his staff worked to set a personal example of service and Christian living to the new converts. Therefore, the spread of Christianity in the coastal Andhra area could be attributed to the efforts of Arthur Cotton.
Telangana regions
Wesleyan Methodist missions Sir Arthur Cotton, a British engineer with the help of two missionaries E.E Jenkins & George Fryar travelled in the Telangana regions. They were responsible for starting work in Sironcha in 1863. The Church Missionary Society started its work in Aurangabad in 1860, which was then part of the Nizam's dominions. Later on William Taylor, a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church triggered a great revival in Hyderabad during the years 1872–1874. The work began in Hyderabad as "Hindustani Mission". Meanwhile, the Methodist Missionary Society began its work as "Godavari Mission" which is named after the river. After fifteen years of thorough survey, in 1879 missionaries Henry Little and William Burgess came to Secunderabad from Madras.
William S. Burgess was the founder of the Wesleyan Mission in Hyderabad. The Tamil congregation of the Church of Scotland Mission was handed over to them in 1880 and it became the first native Indian Wesleyan Congregation in Secunderabad, which later moved into its new building in Clock Tower. He laid the foundations of missionary work by organising the migrant Telugu Christians as well as new converts in centres like Chilkalguda, Musheerabad, Market Street as part of the main church in Clock tower as Wesley Church pastorate, Secunderabad. The first congregation in Secunderabad being of Tamil origin, the Church of Scotland Mission, Madras continued to provide Pastors to serve in the Clock Tower Church for a couple of decades. In Hyderabad the Missionaries appointed a Telugu Christian by name Joseph Cornelius in whose house in Boggulagunta, Ramkote Telugu service was held with the help of the Indian Evangelist Benjamin Wesley December 1879. The present Wesley Girls School in Secunderabad with its attached missionary bungalow was purchased in 1884.
William S. Burgess stayed with his family in a dak bungalow as there was no house ready for accommodation. There were no churches to receive him. He began his work first with British soldiers. He was assisted in his work by his Indian counterpart Mr. Joseph Cornelius. The first baptism was administered by Burgess on 25 January 1880. His first convert was Andrew, son of Chakkariah, who is one of the forerunners of many Christians in the Medak Diocese. Burgess rode on horse-back, much like John Wesley, preaching in the Telangana regions. As the Telugu congregation was growing a church was constructed in the Sultan Bazaar area in 1910. Later in 1927 a foundation stone was laid to construct a large church in Ramkote which is the existing Wesley Church, Ramkote which was dedicated by Rev. Charles Walker Posnett in 1931.