Thaddeus of Edessa Saint Addai | |
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| Born | c.1st century AD |
| Died | c.2nd century AD |
| Venerated in | Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Church |
| Feast | August 5 |
| Part of a series on |
| Eastern Christianity |
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Thaddeus, Syriac Addai (sometimes Latinized as Addeus),[1] was one of the Seventy Apostles of Christ, not to be confused with Thaddeus of the Twelve Apostles.
Thaddaeus was born in Edessa, at the time a Syrian city, (now in Turkey). He came to Jerusalem for a festival, and heard the preaching of John the Baptist (St. John the Forerunner), actual cousin of Jesus. After being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, he remained in Palestine. He later met the Jesus and became a follower. He was chosen to be one of the Seventy Disciples, whom Jesus sent in pairs to preach in the cities and places where he intended to visit.
After Pentecost and the Ascension of Jesus, Thaddeus started preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia, Syria and Persia and helped in building up the Church in these regions. Thaddaeus ordained priests in Edessa and built up the Church there. He also converted many pagans to the Christian Faith. He also went to Beirut to preach and founded a church there as well.
The Syriac liturgy referred to as the Divine Liturgy of Addai and Mari, originated around the year 200 A.D. and is used by the Assyrian Church of the East, that claims a connection to the saint.
According to the "Menaion", he died peacefully in Beirut in 44 AD. Other sources mention that he died in Edessa. However according to Armenian church tradition, St. Thaddeus, was beheaded in Artaz region after being tortured in 50 AD.
Among the Eastern Orthodox faithful, Saint Addai was a disciple of Christ[2] sent by St. Thomas the Apostle to Edessa in order to heal King Abgar V of Osroene, who had fallen ill. He stayed to evangelize, and converted[3] Abgar—or Agbar, or in one Latin version "Acbar" — and his people including Saint Aggai and Saint Mari. The identity of the specific Agbar/Abgar however is open to interpretation: see Abgar.
The legendary tale of how King Abgarus V of Edessa and Jesus had corresponded was first recounted in the 4th century by the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea[4] 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. According to Eusebius: "Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, under divine impulse sent Thaddeus, who was also numbered among the seventy disciples of Christ, to Edessa, as a preacher and evangelist of the teaching of Christ." (Historia Ecclesiastica, I, xiii)
The story of the healing Thaddeus' evangelizing efforts resulted in the growing of Christian communities in 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.[5] There are disagreements about the historical veracity of the tale.[citation needed] 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:[6] The story was retold in elaborated form by Ephrem the Syrian.
St. Addai appears in unorthodox material as well, in two previously unknown apocalypses attributed to James the Just found at Nag Hammadi in 1945.[7]
