Holy See of the East Holy See of the East Holy See of the East is an honorary name of the sees of a number of Christian churches in the Middle East and India. The Head & Father of the Marthoma Nazrani Church and the Gate of All India is commonly known as the successor to the Holy Apostolic See of St. Thomas. The Seat of the Patriarchs of the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Nestorian Catholicos-Patriarchs which emerged from the Ancient Church of the East is also a part of the Holy See of the East. The group of Saint Thomas Christians who left
Foreign relations of the Holy See accredited also to the Holy See. For reasons of economy, therefore, smaller countries accredit to the Holy See a mission situated elsewhere and accredited also to the country of residence and perhaps other countries. Massimo Franco, author of "Parallel Empires", asserted in April 2009 that the Obama administration had put forward three candidates for consideration but each of them had been deemed insufficiently pro-life by the Vatican. This claim was denied by the Holy See's spokesman Federico Lombardi, and was dismissed by Thomas Patrick Melady, former United States Ambassador to the Holy See, as being in conflict with diplomatic practice.