Thomas the Apostle

47

Thomas the Apostle : biography

1st century AD – AD 72

Death

According to Indian Christian tradition, St. Thomas landed in Kodungallur in 52 AD, in the company of a Jewish merchant Abbanes (Hebban).

St. Thomas was killed in India in 72 AD, attaining martyrdom at St. Thomas Mount near Mylapore (part of Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu). He was buried on the site of Chennai’s San Thome Basilica in the Dioceses of Saint Thomas of Mylapore. The Acts of Thomas and oral traditions (only recorded in writing centuries later) provide weak and unreliable evidenceStephen Neill. A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707 ISBN 0-521-54885-3 but the tradition is that Thomas, having aroused the hostility of the local priests by making converts, fled to St. Thomas’s Mount four miles (6 km) southwest of Mylapore. He was supposedly followed by his persecutors, who transfixed him with a lance as he prayed kneeling on a stone. His body was brought to Mylapore and buried inside the church he had built. The present Basilica is on this spot. It was first built in the 16th century and rebuilt in the 19th.

History of the relics

Few relics are still kept in church at Mylapore, Tamil Nadu, India.

According to tradition, in 232 AD, the greater part of relics of the Apostle Thomas are said to have been sent by an Indian king and brought from India to the city of Edessa, Mesopotamia, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written.

The Indian king is named as "Mazdai" in Syriac sources, "Misdeos" and "Misdeus" in Greek and Latin sources respectively, which has been connected to the "Bazdeo" on the Kushan coinage of Vasudeva I, the transition between "M" and "B" being a current one in Classical sources for Indian names. The martyrologist Rabban Sliba dedicated a special day to both the Indian king, his family, and St Thomas.

They were kept in a shrine just outside the city. In August 394, they were transferred in the city, inside the church dedicated to the saint.

In 441, the Magister militum per Orientem Anatolius donated a silver coffin to hold the relics.J.B. Segal, Edessa ‘the Blessed City, Gorgias Press LLC, 2005, ISBN 1-59333-059-6, pp. 174–176, 250.

Coronatio Thomae apostoli et Misdeus rex Indiae, Johannes eus filius huisque mater Tertia ("Coronation of Thomas the Apostle, and Misdeus king of India, together with his son Johannes (thought to be a latinization of Vizan) and his mother Tertia") Rabban Sliba

In 522 AD, Cosmas Indicopleustes (called the Alexandrian) visited the Malabar Coast. He is the first traveler who mentions Syrian Christians in Malabar, in his book Christian Topography. He mentions that in the town of "Kalliana" (Quilon or Kollam) was a bishop who had been consecrated in Persia. Metropolitan Mar Aprem writes, "Most church historians, who doubt the tradition of the doubting Thomas in India, will admit there was a church in India in the middle of the sixth century when Cosmas Indicopleustes visited India."Mar Aprem, The Chaldean Syrian Church of the East, (Date and place of publication not available.)

King Vira Raghavaa gave a copper plate recording a grant given to Iravi Korttan, a Christian of Kodungallur (Cranganore), with the date estimated at around 744 AD. It is similar to a copper plate given to Joseph Rabbanes, leader of the Jewish community at that time. In 822 AD two Nestorian Persian Bishops, Mar Sapor and Mar Peroz, came to Malabar to occupy their seats in Kollam and Kodungallur, to care for the local Syrian Christians (also known as St. Thomas Christians).

In 1144 the city was conquered by the Zengids and the shrine destroyed.J.B. Segal, Edessa ‘the Blessed City, Gorgias Press LLC, 2005, ISBN 1-59333-059-6, pp. 174–176, 250.

After a short stay in the Greek island of Chios, on 6 September 1258, the relics were transported to the West, and now rest in Ortona, Abruzzo, Italy.

Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller and author of Description of the World, popularly known as Il Milione, is reputed to have visited South India in 1288 and 1292. The first date has been rejected as he was in China at the time, but the second date is accepted by many historians. He is believed to have stopped in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where he documented the tomb of Adam. He also stopped at Quilon (Kollam) on the western Malabar coast of India, where he met Syrian Christians and recorded their tradition of St. Thomas and his tomb on the eastern Coromandel coast of the country. Il Milione, the book he dictated on his return to Europe, was on its publication condemned by the Church as a collection of impious and improbable traveller’s tales. It became very popular reading in medieval Europe and inspired Spanish and Portuguese sailors to seek out the fabulous, and possibly Christian, India described in it.