community
Kalliana (bishop from Persia)
Kalyan, near Mumbai, India · India & Indian Ocean
19.240, 73.130
Approximate location.
Attested. Attested by Cosmas, an eyewitness traveler. The Kalliana = Kalyan identification is standard but not certain.
Kalliana (bishop from Persia)
Kalyan, near Mumbai
Cosmas Indicopleustes, writing around 550, says that at Kalliana there was a bishop 'appointed from Persia'. This is the earliest firm evidence of an organized Church of the East bishopric on India's west coast. Kalliana is usually identified with Kalyan near Mumbai.
Source stance: neutral. Cosmas was a Christian, but he reports here as an observer of trade and churches.
People and groups named here
- Cosmas Indicopleustes (witness)
Sources
- Cosmas Indicopleustes, Christian Topography, Book III (churches in Taprobane, Male, Kalliana, Dioscoris)
tr. J. W. McCrindle, Hakluyt Society (1897), public domain; tertullian.org. Accessed 2026-11-11.
- Cosmas Indicopleustes, Christian Topography, Book XI (Taprobane and its Persian Christians)
tr. J. W. McCrindle, Hakluyt Society (1897), public domain; tertullian.org. Accessed 2026-11-11.
- Kalyan (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors. Accessed 2026-11-11.
Further reading
Councils here
None in this list.