St Thomas Church, Sandor

Sandor is a village within Vasai in Palghar district, home to a largely Roman Catholic East Indian community, and its parish church of St Thomas has a history reaching back to the 1560s. Following conversions in 1564, Donna Irina, a Portuguese noblewoman, had a chapel of Our Lady of Help built here, where Jesuits said the first Mass on 11 November 1566. It was renamed for Thomas the Apostle when his picture was brought from the Bassein fort, and was later replaced by a church on the present site.

The church was destroyed by forces from the Gujarat Sultanate in 1571, rebuilt in 1573, and damaged again in 1679 and 1690. It came through the Maratha capture of Bassein in 1739 and was enlarged in 1889. Its three altars came from one of the original churches in Fort San Sebastian at Bassein, and a cross and a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes were added later. The parish feast runs from 9 to 15 December.