Telugu Christians or Telugu Kraistava (Telugu: తెలుగు క్రైస్తవులు, romanized: Telugu Kraistavulu) are ethnic-Telugus who follow Christianity. They form the third largest religious minority in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. According to the 2001 Census of India, there are over a million Christians in Andhra Pradesh, constituting around 1.51% of the state's population.

Most Telugu Christians are Protestant, belonging to major Indian Protestant denominations such as the predominant United Protestant Church of South India, Pentecostals such as Assemblies of God in India, India Pentecostal Church of God, The Pentecostal Mission, the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches, the Salvation Army and several others. There also is a significant number of Roman Catholics and Evangelicals. The Franciscans of the Roman Catholic Church brought Christianity to the Deccan area in 1535, and after 1759 AD, when the Northern Circars came under the rule of the East India Company, the region opened up to greater Christian influence.

The first Protestant missionaries in Andhra Pradesh were two clergymen named Cran and Des Granges who were sent by the London Missionary Society and set up their station at Visakhapatnam in 1805 AD. Regions with significant populations of Telugu Christians include the erstwhile Northern Circars, the coastal belt and the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Telugu Christians have one of the highest literacy and work participation figures and most even male-to-female ratio figures among the various religious communities in the state.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, missionaries from most major denominations started arriving in the Andhra region. Established in 1805, the London Missionary Society was the first Protestant mission in Andhra Pradesh which had its station at Visakhapatnam. The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists who were largely Congregationalist in outlook. George Crann and Augustus Des Granges were the first batch of missionaries that was sent out by the London Missionary Society to Andhra Pradesh in 1804. They arrived in Visakhapatnam on 18 July 1805 and began learning the Telugu language. They mastered it in a short time and began translating parts of the New Testament. In the next three years, the four Gospels were published. Their work was halted with the deaths of George Crann in 1809 and of Des Granges in 1810. A new batch of missionaries, Revs. Lee, Gordon and Pritchett took over the work done by their predecessors. The first complete New Testament in Telugu was printed in Madras.

The American Baptist Mission and Godavari Delta Mission established their stations in 1836. They were followed by Church Missionary Society in 1841 and the then American Lutheran Mission in 1842. British colonial officers, Eurasians, and the likely presence of a few native Christian families has made missionary activity a possibility in these early years. Telugu Baptist pastors like Puroshottam Choudhary and Das Anthervedy from the Telugu-speaking districts of Madras Presidency.

hra was John Christian Frederick Heyer who arrived in the year 1842 AD. His wife and children remained in Friedens, Somerset County, Pennsylvania 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. John's 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 Ministerium, 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.