2 Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) -Early Church in India

Saint Thomas, the disciple of Lord Jesus Christ came to India, landed on the Malabar Coast in 52AD. After a brief witness and service in Kerala, he moved to Mylapore, Madras. There is a hill in Madras named after him as Saint Thomas Mount. He was killed in Mylapore in 72AD. There was no apparent Christian activity till about 7th century. Christians from Syria and Mesopotamia have reached southern coast and established the Syrian Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church in Kerala. The Syrian Church has its base in Kerala but now spread over many parts of the country to a limited extent. Active propagation of Christianity started in the 16th century with the coming of the Portuguese to India. In 1548AD, St. Francis Xavier had come to the west coast, Goa and established the organized church. Saint Xavier Cathedral is the standing monument which is now a heritage place. The growth of Telugu Church Telugu speaking area consists of Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana. The first two were with the Madras presidency while Telangana was under the control of the Nawab of Nizam till the formation of Andhra Pradesh in 1956 November first through State reorganization. French Governors built the first Telugu Church at Guntur during 1752. In 1792, the Catholic Mission established a Church at Phirngipurum in Guntur District. The London Mission Society (LMS) established the protestant church at Vizayanagaram in 1805, and then at Cuddapah and at Visakhapatnam in 1822. The American Baptist Church (ABM) established the Baptist congregation in 1836 at Nellore. The LMS established Telugu churches at Srikakulum in 1839 and at Masulipatnam in 1940.

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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 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. Johns 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 Magisterium, 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

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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 etc. Major Cotton himself spoke in many such meetings. He and his staff worked in order 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. College The Andhra-Christian College, or AC College, is one of the oldest colleges in India. AC College is part of the educational enterprise of the Protestant Churches. The college admits intermediate, under-graduate and graduate students and awards degrees through the Acharya Nagarjuna University, Nagarjunanagar to which it is affiliated. Saint George is the patron saint of the College. At the entrance of the college a statue of the patron saint's image slaying the dragon is found.Elected officials of the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church administer the college. In Latin, the college motto is Et Cognoscetis Veritatem Et Veritas Liberabit Vos meaning And you shall know the truth: and the truth shall make you free It was established in 1885 in Guntur City, one of the first colleges in India to offer graduate programs. Missionaries of the Protestant traditions established the College. The then United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) through Rev. Fr. John Christian Frederick Heyer (known as Father Heyer) established the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church on 31 July 1842 Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) through its Board of Education administers the College.

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The college consists of three entities:

Day College Evening College College of Law

Intermediate Pre-University or Intermediate courses are offered by the College. The College is affiliated to the Board of Intermediate Education, Hyderabad, a regulatory authority for pre-university courses in Andhra Pradesh. The following course combinations are available: Biology, Physics, Chemistry Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry History, Economics, Commerce Civics, Economics, Commerce Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) Post-graduate programmes Master of Arts (M.A.) Master of Science (M.Sc.) Medicine Education Dewan Bahadur T. S. Paulus Universities and colleges in Andhra Pradesh Educational institutions established in 1885

The College is blessed with a very rich Library having large number of volumes about moir than 10,000 in various branches of Law and other related disciplines. We subscribe to 20 Journals. I am thankful to Mr. P.C. 28

Jacob, Librarian, Mr. M. Victor Paul and Mrs. Vanaja for maintaining the Library very well. I would like to place on record my heartfelt gratitude to our part-time faculty member and leading lawyer of the Guntur Bar Mr. M. Sitarama Das for his generous and magnanimous gesture of donating books worth more than Rs. 1 Lakh to our College Library. A.C. College of Law is the second offspring of A.C. College, Guntur, which was established in the year 1885. A.C. College secured affiliation for the LL.B., Degree Course in 1974 and thus the Department of Law was established in A.C. College. Aims and Ambitions We take this opportunity to state that this is the first Christian College of Law in our country. This is an Institution run by the Christian Religious minority Community members, belonging to the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church.

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