St Adai – Oct 1 I Evangelist, Bishop of Edessa

St. Adai, (Mar Addai or Mar Aday, sometimes Latin: Addeus) the twin brother of St. Thomas, was one of the seventy-two (seventy) evangelists, the Lord appointed and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go (Lk. 10: 1). St. Adai was the first Bishop of Edessa (Urhoy). St Addai is also possibly identical with Thaddaeus, one of the Twelve Apostles. He stayed to evangelize Edessa and so converted Abgar or Agbar, (Latin ‘Acbar’) and his people including, St Aggai, whom he converted and who in turn converted St Mari. St. Addai is purported by Eusebius to have visited King Abgar of Edessa, healing him, and preaching to him. St Addai, disciple of Jesus Christ, sent by St Thomas the Apostle, to Edessa to heal King Abgar V of the Armenian kingdom of Osroene, which had its capital city in Edessa, who had fallen ill, with intolerable and incurable disease.  

Ecclesiastical tradition attributes the evangelization of the people of Edessa to the apostle St. Thomas, more particularly to St. Adai, St. Aggai and St. Mari. St. Addai is considered to be, the second Catholicos in the lineage, that was founded by St Thomas the Apostle. St Addai was succeeded by St. Aggai (Aggaeus) 3^rd Catholicos and St. Mari, 4^th Catholicos. St Addai is venerated in the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Oriental Orthodox Church. Some biographers have mixed up the details of St. Adai, the twin brother of St. Thomas, with that of St. Adai, the martyr, of the second century.

Abgar Kings ruled Urhoy during the period, B.C. 132 – A.D. 224. Abgar V who was the King during the reign of Tiberius Caesar of Rome sent a letter to Jesus. At the time when our Lord was still incarnate on earth, there reigned in Osroene a king called Abgar the Black, who lived at Edessa. This fact is mentioned in the Church History of Eusebius and in the Syriac, document known as the Doctrine (teaching) of Adai. The prayers in the middle of the Great Lent also affirm this historical fact. He suffered from some incurable disease and having heard of the miracles of healing of our Lord, he sent to Him a letter by the hand of his secretary, Hannanyo. In it he addresses Christ as ‘the Good Physician’ and asks Him to come to Edessa and heal him. Hannanyo found our Lord in the house of Gamaliel, and He replied to Abgar that, “I am about to return to my Father, all for which I was sent into the world being finished. But when I shall have ascended to Him, I will send one of my disciples, who shall heal you of your sickness and bring you and yours to eternal life.”

After the Ascension of the Lord, St Thomas, under divine impulse sent Addai his brother and one among 72 commissioned by Jesus, to the Abgar’s court. He lodged with a Jew, named Tobias, and when he was presented to the king, he healed him and taught him the faith. Monk, John of Damascus provided more details, saying that Jesus had pressed His face into a cloth, causing the image to appear and this shroud was sent to King Abgar, with the letter. This image of Jesus, called the Image of Edessa or the Holy Face of Edessa, is the Mandylion of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The king kept the Mandylion in his royal palace. The Syriac document states that Hannanyo also brought back to Abgar a portrait of our Lord which he had painted (‘not-made-by-human-hands’). This is the beginning of the legend of the Mandylion, which is said to have been kept at Edessa until it was taken to Constantinople in the 8th century.

The story of the healing of Abgar V, by Adai/Thaddeus’ and the evangelizing efforts resulted in the growing of Christian communities in southern Armenia, northern Mesopotamia and in Syria east of Antioch. Thaddeus’ story recounts the role of Addai and makes him one of the 72 Apostles sent out to spread the Christian faith. Addai converted Abgar and multitudes of his people, among other the royal jeweler, Aggai, whom he made bishop and his successor, and Palut, whom Addai ordained priest on his deathbed. Eventually, Aggai was martyred and Palut went to Antioch to be consecrated by Saint Serapion.  So, it seems that Addai was a missionary to Edessa. The Syriac liturgy has reference to the Liturgy of Addai and Mari, originating around the year 200 AD and is used by the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church, and Chaldean Syrian Church and Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India.

By the time the legend 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. King Abgar built a Church in Urhoy and was the first King to embrace Christianity. Three feast days of St. Addai are seen in the calendar of the Orthodox Syrian Church, 28 April, 26 June, and 1 October