According to

Eastern Christian Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and ...

tradition, Addai of Edessa (

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

: ܡܪܝ ܐܕܝ,

Mar Mar, mar or MAR may refer to: Culture * Mar or Mor, an honorific in Syriac * Earl of Mar, an earldom in Scotland * MAA (singer) (born 1986), Japanese * Marathi language, by ISO 639-2 language code * March, as an abbreviation for the third mon ...

Addai or Mor Aday sometimes Latinized Addeus) or Thaddeus of Edessa was one of the

seventy disciples The seventy disciples or seventy-two disciples, known in the Eastern Christian traditions as the seventy apostles or seventy-two apostles, were early emissaries of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. The correct Greek terminology is evdomik ...

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

. He is possibly identical with Thaddaeus, one of the

Twelve Apostles In Christian theology and ecclesiology, the apostles, particularly the Twelve Apostles (also known as the Twelve Disciples or simply the Twelve), were the primary disciples of Jesus according to the New Testament. During the life and minist ...

. From an early date his hagiography is filled with legends and fabrications. The saint himself may be entirely fictitious.

Life

Based on various

traditions, Thaddaeus was a Jew born in Edessa, at the time a Syriac city, (now

Şanlıurfa Urfa, officially known as Şanlıurfa () and in ancient times as Edessa, is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. Urfa is situated on a plain about 80 km east of the Euphrates River. Its climate features ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

). He came to Jerusalem for a festival, and heard the preachings of

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

(St. John the Forerunner). After being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, he remained in Palestine. He later met and became a follower of Jesus. He was chosen to be one of the seventy disciples, whom Jesus sent in pairs to preach in the cities and places."Apostle Thaddeus of the Seventy", Orthodox Church in America
/ref> After Pentecost and the

ascension of Jesus The Ascension of Jesus (anglicized from the Vulgate la, ascensio Iesu, lit=ascent of Jesus) is the Christian teaching that Christ physically departed from Earth by rising to Heaven, in the presence of eleven of his apostles. According to th ...

, Thaddeus started preaching

the gospel The gospel or good news is a theological concept in several religions. In the historical Roman imperial cult and today in Christianity, the gospel is a message about salvation by a divine figure, a savior, who has brought peace or other benefit ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

, Syria and

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. Thaddaeus ordained priests in Edessa, converted many to Christianity and built up the church there. He also went to

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

to preach, and many believe that he founded a church there. The Syriac liturgy referred to as the

Liturgy of Addai and Mari The Liturgy of Addai and Mari (or the ''Holy Qurbana of Mar Addai and Mar Mari'') is the Eucharistic liturgy belonging to the East Syriac Rite and was historically used in the Church of the East of the Sasanian (Persian) Empire. This liturgy ...

originated around the year 200 AD and is used by the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church (both of which are based in Iraq); it is also used by the Eastern Syriac Churches in India which trace their origins to

Thomas the Apostle Thomas the Apostle ( arc, 𐡀𐡌𐡅𐡕𐡌, hbo, תוֹמא הקדוש or תוֹמָא שליחא (''Toma HaKadosh'' "Thomas the Holy" or ''Toma Shlikha'' "Thomas the Messenger/Apostle" in Hebrew-Aramaic), syc, ܬܐܘܡܐ, , meaning "twi ...

, namely, the Chaldean Syrian Church and Syro-Malabar Catholic Church . His feast is celebrated on August 5 in the Christian calendar.

Addai and the healing of King Abgar

Among the

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...

faithful, Saint Addai was a disciple of Christ sent by St. Thomas the Apostle to Edessa in order to heal King Abgar V of

Osroene Osroene or Osrhoene (; grc-gre, Ὀσροηνή) was an ancient region and state in Upper Mesopotamia. The ''Kingdom of Osroene'', also known as the "Kingdom of Edessa" ( syc, ܡܠܟܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܐܘܪܗܝ / "Kingdom of Urhay"), according to ...

, who had fallen ill. He stayed to evangelize, and so converted Abgar—or Agbar, or in one Latin version "Acbar" — and his people including Saint Aggai and

Saint Mari Saint Mari, also known as Mares and originally named Palut, is a saint of the Church of the East. He was converted by Thaddeus of Edessa, or Addai, and is said to have had Mar Aggai as his spiritual director. Missionary work He is believed to ...

. The story of how King Abgarus V and

had corresponded was first recounted in the 4th century by the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea. In the origin of the legend, Eusebius had been shown documents purporting to contain the official correspondence that passed between Abgar and Jesus, and he was well enough convinced by their authenticity to quote them extensively in his ''

Ecclesiastical History __NOTOC__ Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritua ...

''. According to Eusebius: The story of the healing and Thaddeus' evangelizing efforts resulted in the growing of Christian communities in southern Armenia, northern Mesopotamia and in Syria east of Antioch. Thaddeus' story is embodied in the Syriac document, '' Doctrine of Addai,'' which recounts the role of Addai and makes him one of the 72 Apostles sent out to spread the Christian faith. By the time the

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...

had returned to Syria, the purported site of the miraculous image, it had been embroidered into a tissue of miraculous happenings. The story was retold in elaborated form by Ephrem the Syrian.

Various traditions

St. Addai also appears in the ''

First Apocalypse of James The First Apocalypse of James is a late second century Gnostic apocalypse. Contents The form of the text is primarily that of a Revelation Dialogue/Discourse between James the brother of Jesus (James the Just) and Jesus, with a rather frag ...

'' and the '' Second Apocalypse of James''.Robert Eisenman, ''James the Brother of Jesus : The key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls,'' 1997 (Viking Penguin). Especially the section "Thaddeus, Judas Thomas and the conversion of the Osrhoeans", pp 189ff. In Roman Catholic tradition, he and

are considered patrons of

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and Assyrian people.

References

External links

Thomasine Church Patriarchs

* ttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05088a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia: ''Doctrine of St. Addai''
Syriac Orthodox: ''Doctrine of St. Addai''
- online text in English

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thaddeus of Edessa 1st-century births 2nd-century deaths 1st-century bishops 2nd-century Mesopotamian bishops 2nd-century Christian saints Year of birth missing Year of death missing Ancient apocalypticists Assyrian Church of the East saints Bishops of Edessa Christian hagiography Early Jewish Christians Patriarchs of the Church of the East Persian saints 1st-century Jews Saints from Roman Syria Seventy disciples Syriac Christianity