Thomas Palackal

Mullankuzhy Palackal Thoma, T.O.C.D., commonly given the honorific title of Malpan, (c. 1780 – 1841) was an Indian Catholic priest of the Syro-Malabar Church based in India. He was the senior priest among the three founders of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (the first native religious institute of the Eastern Catholic Church), and the founder of the first seminary for Syro-Malabar Catholics.

Palackal Thoma Malpan was born in Palackal family,about 1780 in the village of Pallippuram, an ancient Suriyani (Syrian) Christian family in Kerala, India. Most Christians in Kerala are known as Syrian Christians in view of the Syriac (classical form of Aramaic) liturgy used in church services since the early days of Christianity in India. They are also known as Nasrani (followers of Jesus the Nazarene). Pallippuram ,now part of the state of Kerala, then in the Kingdom of Travancore.

Thoma Palackal felt a call to the Christian ministry, for which he pursued theological studies under a noted priest of the Syrian Church, Abraham Thachil. He received Holy Orders in 1807.

After Thoma's ordination he was named as Secretary for the Saint Thomas Christians and a councilor to the Vicariate Apostolic of Malabar (now the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Verapoly), who led them in the name of the Holy See in Rome, Bishop Raimundo di San Giuseppe Roviglia, O.C.D. (1803–1815). He would serve as a councilor to the Apostolic Vicariate for the rest of his life.

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