The historical rationale for the division between the majority St. Thomas Christians and minority Knanaya traces the divide to the figure of Thomas of Cana, a Syrian merchant who led a group of 72 Jewish-Christian immigrant families, a bishop named Uraha Mar Yausef, and clergymen from Mesopotamia to settle in Cranganore, India in the 4th century (some sources place these events as late as the 9th century). This may reflect a historical migration of East Syrian Christians to India around this time, which established the region's relationship with the Church of the East.In the commonly accepted accounts of this history, the Knanaya are the descendants of Thomas of Cana and his followers, while the Northists descend from the local Christian body which had been converted by Thomas the Apostle centuries earlier. The "Oxford History of the Christian Church" states the following about the division: 