The Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam, Kerala, India, instituted in 1815 by Malankara Orthodox Church, is the first Orthodox Christian School of Theology in Asia.
The Orthodox Theological Seminary (OTS), known in annals as Pazhaya (Old) Seminary / Kottayam Syrian College, completes 200 years of witness to knowledge and truth. For many reasons, it holds a unique place among the educational institutions in Kerala and India. It has and continues to render various monumental services to people at large and Christian denominations in particular. Its ministration to the surveillance of Orthodox Christian ideals, especially in the struggles to safeguard internal Church freedom, has made it a venerable centre of Orthodox Christianity.
Starting up as a centre to educate and mould-up clergies of the ancient St. Thomas Christians of India, it eventually became the cradle and headquarters of more than four Christian denominations of the Thomas Christians during the last 200 years as each of them carefully glance back. The Seminary is today, the seat of highest Orthodox Theological learning and ecumenical dealings in India. The history of the Seminary is essentially part of the chronicle of the heroic struggle of the ancient Orthodox Christian Church of India to preserve its identity, to protect its internal freedom, to strengthen its spirituality and to promote its ideals, when these were challenged by adversive forces from time to time.
The Old Seminary is a living witness and forum of actions for many great events that took place in and around Kottayam in Central Kerala during the last 200 years. The impacts followed had decisively affected the Kerala society irrespective of religion and communities in social, cultural, ecclesial levels. The Seminary was a great witness to a distinctively owned and sustained Christian tradition and also to several surrounding socio-political realities and many religious revivals in the Kerala society.