Sts. Addai and Mari (1st century)

There was a Christian colony in Edessa, Syria, by the 2nd century, and from there it appears the faith spread to Mesopotamia and Persia. However, a local ecclesiastical tradition in these latter areas attributes their evangelization to Saint Thomas, who is said to have been the Apostle of India, and who sent Saint Addai who converted Saint Aggai who converted Saint Mari. This story (recorded in Walsh) is a combination of the narratives of Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical history and the Syriac The doctrine of Addai (written about 400):

"At the time when our Lord was still incarnate upon earth there reigned in Osroene a king called Abgar the Black, who lived at Edessa. 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.'"

According to Eusebius our Lord wrote out this message Himself and it was accordingly greatly reverenced throughout Christendom during the middle ages. The Syriac document states that Hannanyo also brought back to Abgar a portrait of our Lord which he had painted (later, '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.

After the Ascension of the Lord, Thomas the apostle sent Addai his brother and one of the 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. 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, who like many other saintly men was attached to the apostles to emphasize the connection to Jesus--and isn't that what we are here for, to grow as close as possible to our Savior?

Saint Mari's existence is even questioned. His acts claim that he was a disciple of Saint Addai, who sent him to Nisibis, where he preached before renewing the work of Jonas the prophet at Nineveh. He then traveled down the Tigris River until he began "to smell the smell of the Apostle Thomas," and died near Seleucia- Ctesiphon after consecrating its bishop Papa bar Aggai. We are told that wherever Mari went, he made numerous converts, destroyed temples, built churches, and founded monasteries--on a scale rarely found in sober history.

Nevertheless, even with all these historical problems, Addai and Mari have been venerated since the earliest times as the evangelists of the Tigris-Euphrates region.