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The Members
Of the St Thomas Knanaya Church
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When our church was registered in 1984 the membership comprised of only 8 knanaya
families. And when our own worship facility was inaugurated in 1997, the membership
comprised of 13 families. Today we have grown to about 80 member families. The membership
of our church is made up of immigrant Knanaya families from Kerala, India. The warmer
climate and the affordable cost of living in Dallas have drawn more and more Knanaya
families to Texas and our church continues to grow every year.
The Knanaya people are a tightly knit community that immigrated to India in 345AD.
We are proud to uphold to this day, the values and traditions of our Jewish Christian
heritage handed down through generations.
Our members are made up of people from all walks of life and many of them have been
residents or North Texas for a number of years. In the early nineties, as the Knanaya
community in Dallas grew, the need for a permanent house of worship became a necessity.
Through the hard work and determination of a handful of our Dallas kananya community
elders, the St Thomas Knanaya Church on Balleywood Rd in Irving came into being
in 1997. While those pioneers continue to serve our church to this day, our parish
has grown manifold, to the extend that in 2009 we moved into a larger facility on
Metker St just a few miles from the Balleywood Rd facility.
Because all our members are immigrants from Kerala, India, the Sunday mass is conducted
in the Malayalam language with occasional readings in Syriac, the official language
of the Syriac Orthodox Church. At present we do not have an English mass, but we
hope to introduce an English mass soon, as part of our Sunday worship.
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Click here to download a Membership Application Form
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