Chapter 2 The Mylapore Mission of St. Thomas the Apostle
Did Thomas come to Mylapore? Did he preach the Gospel here
and the surrounding areas? There are three shrines in the city of
Chennai claiming our attention as to their affinity with the Apostle.
There is first of all the tomb of St. Thomas enshrined within the
majestic Gothic Cathedral at Mylapore on the seashore. There is
another shrine with a deep cave attached to it, about four
kilometers from the tomb of the saint, claiming itself to have been
the habitat of the Apostle to hide himself from his enemies and to
keep himself close to God in prayer. And finally there is the hill
shrine at what is now known as St. Thomas Mount where our saint
is understood to have taken refuge from his enemies, but ultimately
discovered and killed.
We shall approach this theme of the mission of St. Thomas at
Mylapore generally referred to as the Coromandel Coast under
three aspects. In the first place we shall see if the apocryphal book
Acts of Thomas which gave the first information regarding the
Indian mission of Thomas contains any reference to his apostolate
in the Mylapore area. In the second place we shall discuss the
Malabar tradition regarding the apostolate of St. Thomas in
Mylapore; and finally we shall examine the traditions arising from
Mylapore itself.
i. The Acts of Thomas and Mission in Mylapore
We have already touched upon this topic when we discussed the
apocryphal works bearing the name of Thomas. Although there is
no clear reference to Mylapore or for that matter even South India,
yet many a scholar sees references to the mission of the Apostle
in the South. Their main argument runs somewhat like this. The
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Acts of Thomas was composed sometime towards the end of the
second century or early third century, first in Syriac and then in
Greek, possibly in Edessa. It gives just a skeleton of a history about
St. Thomas’ mission in India, surrounding it largely with folklore and
legend, as it was the norm among the writers of this type of
literature at that time. Even the names of characters involved with
the Apostle and his mission are conveniently changed to suit the
immediate Syrian or Greek readership. And the real characters then
are hidden within the apparent ones. Hence even the name
apocryphal literature (apocryphal means ‘hidden’).
With a view to discover the real characters behind the fictitious
names occurring in the Acts of Thomas there have been efforts to
re-read the text in the South Indian context. Though this argument
may sound a bit too extravagant and farfetched, yet that seems to
be the only way to corroborate the more feasible arguments with
regard to the mission of the Apostle in South India.
In the first place the well-known Gondophares or Gundaphar of the
Acts of Thomas who is the first and most prominent contact of
Thomas in India, is christened as Kandapparasa or Kandappa Raja
in keeping with the Tamil nomenclature. It is around him that
Thomas’ mission flourished in Mylapore and he had access even to
the royal family many of whom were converted to Christianity. And
Kandapparasa is supposed to have been a contemporary of
Thomas in the Tamil Kingdom where Mylapore is a prominent city.
Other name attributes are even more gratuitous like reading Sifur
as Sitraram, Sinthice as Sinna Acci, Mygdonia as Magudani, Tertia
as Tirupathi, or Vazin as Vijayan and King Misdai as King
Mahadevan who apparently ordered the death of the Thomas.
While we may accept the possibility of a reference in the Acts of
Thomas as to the mission of Thomas in South India, and even the
probability of some Tamil characters hidden in the names mentioned
in the Acts, yet some direct change of names is too farfetched. The
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Acts may be valuable or worthless, but the South Indian Tradition
does not depend upon it, except that possibly it gave the theme for
its talented writer.
ii. The Malabar tradition of Thomas in Mylapore.
We have already described the Malabar tradition regarding Thomas
and his apostolate in the Malabar Coast. It may be summarily
stated as follows: The Apostle traveled to the Malabar Coast by
ship and landed there some time in 52 A.D. He preached the
Gospel in the coastal towns. The presence of a large number of
Jews as well as other foreigners who were there for the purpose
of trade also helped his ministry. He converted several Hindus
among who were some Nambudiri Brahmins, as well as some royal
households. After a few years the Apostle continued his journey
along the seacoast and went over to the Coromandel Coast, in the
eastern part of India. He continued his mission in the coastal city
of Mylapore and won many converts there. And he was killed by
some Brahmins in 72 A.D., and his body was buried in Mylapore
in the very church, which the Apostle had built with his own hands.
When the Portuguese arrived in India at the end of the 15th
century, probably their first Christian contacts were in the Malabar
Coast with the St. Thomas Christians. It is from them that they
learnt of the tomb of Thomas in the Coromandel Coast. By then the
Christians from Malabar, as well as other western travelers and
even pilgrims from the Near East were regularly going to visit and
pray at the tomb of the saint in Mylapore. It is in the context of
such a movement generated by the Malabar tradition that the
Portuguese got themselves interested in the shrine of St. Thomas
at Mylapore.
The Malabar tradition has continued with the Christians of Kerala
down the centuries. Pilgrims from Malabar continued to frequent
the tomb of Thomas in Mylapore even until today, and to take away
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with them sand from the place of his burial as a mark of their
devotion to the saint. The Malabar tradition on St. Thomas in
Mylapore is kept alive until this day through the many traditional
songs prevalent there like the Ramban Song, the Margam Kali Song
and the Veeradian Songs.
The Malabar tradition also has a touch of the Acts of Thomas. He
is said to have converted a certain king in Mylapore called
“Cholaperumal” in some versions and “Kandapparaser” in others,
besides many Brahmin families of high position. Several miracles
are also narrated.
iii. The Early Mylapore Tradition on St. Thomas
Mylapore at present is one small subdivision of the city of Chennai
lying to its south, and partly bordering upon the seacoast of the Bay
of Bengal. And Santhome, is a sector of Mylapore, surrounding the
tomb of St. Thomas. It is in Santhome that the Bishop of Mylapore.
lived from the time that Mylapore was made a diocese in 1606. And
Santhome continues to be the headquarters of the Archdiocese of
Madras-Mylapore from its inception in 1952. And today Mylapore
has a sizeable Christian community and the Christian presence in
the locality is certainly far more intense in comparison with the
number of Christians inhabiting the place.
a. Early History of Mylapore
Was Mylapore so important that St. Thomas should have landed
there when he decided to travel to the Coromandel coast from the
Malabar Coast? It did not seem to have been a trade centre like
Muziris. Then what is it that made Mylapore famous?. Most
scholars say that it was a temple city where there could have been
a Siva temple that attracted many visitors36 . There is a legend
among the Hindus with regard to the name ‘Mailappur’ or the
pea**** town. A strong tradition claims that the town was named
after Parvathi the consort of Siva who appeared to him once in the
form of a pea**** and worshipped him. And it is hence that the
name ‘mayilai’ was given to the town (mayil in Tamil means
pea****). This town could have been known for its pristine beauty
and for the presence of the most beautiful of birds, the pea****s.
Hence the fame of this place could have resulted from the temple
factor as well as the presence of numerous pea****s around.
In the 7th century the Tamil seer and poet Thirugnana Sambhandar
in his “Thevaram hymns” has written in praise of Siva at Mayilai
confirming the fame of God Siva in Mylapore. And two centuries
later Sundaramurthy Swamigal has also sung in honour of Siva
saying, ‘I am a devotee of the Lord of the temple of Mayilai’37.
It is even said that the present popular Kapaleesvarar temple at
Mylapore about a kilometer from the tomb of Thomas could have
come up after the shore temple of Siva disappeared due to erosion
from the sea, and gradually embellished to the present dimensions.
There are other factors that give importance to Myalpore. Already
in the second century A.D., Ptolemy the astronomer and
geographer of antiquity has referred to a site known as
Maliarpha in the Coromandel Coast certainly meaning Mylapore.
This town should have been so popular in the early times that it has
been called by several names. The popular Ramban Song calls it
Mailepuram. And the other variants to the name have been,
Malepur, Malpuri, Maylapil, Manarpha, Manaliarpha,
Mirapolis, Mirpor, Milipur, Molepur, Meliapor, Mayila, and
Meilan38.
We had earlier referred to Mylapore as mentioned among some of
the Christian writers as Calamina. Pseudo-Sophronius (7th century),
St. Isidroe of Seville (7th century), Bar-Hebraeus (13th century) and
the Roman Martyrology speak of Calamina as the place where St.
Thomas died. As mentioned earlier ‘Calamina’ could have been a
development of ‘kallin-mele’, that is ‘on the stone’, in the sense that
Thomas was killed on the hill; and Mylapore could have been large
enough even to include the hill on which Thomas was killed (the
present St.Thomas Mount), and hence it became known as
Calamina, but only in a Christian tradition arising from the West.
There is also an opinion that Calamina can also be a corruption of
‘Cholamandalam’ or ‘Coromandel’39 A life of St. Francis Xavier
printed in Rome in 1630 clearly identifies Calamina with Mylapore
stating, “The holy man of God Thomas came to preach to the city
of Calamina which the people of the place call Meliapore”40.
An Italian merchant Nichola de Conti (1425-1430) speaks of his
arrival in “Malepur”, “a maritime city”, “situated in the second gulf
beyond the Indus “where lay honourably buried” the body of St.
Thomas, “in a beautiful church”41.
b. Tradition of the Tomb of St. Thomas in Mylapore
Before the Portuguese arrived on the scene of the tomb first as
pilgrims and later as its custodians, it was a site much venerated by
the local population of Christians as well as others. How did they
know of the precious contents of the tomb they were venerating?
It is true that the Acts of Thomas does contain the fact of Thomas’
death at the end of his mission in India, and of his burial there. But
the tradition did not arise from this book which had its origin in the
West and in a language unknown to the people who actually lived
around the tomb. There has been an opinion that the tomb which
had a Muslim patronage for several years before the Portuguese
arrived could have been that of a Muslim holy man42. Muslims who
are accustomed to honour the tombs of their holy men also did not
fail to respect holy men of other faiths. As mentioned earlier Marco
Polo, the 13th century European traveler clearly stated that the
Saracens respected the Apostle as a prophet and saint, and hence
venerated his tomb. And since the earliest times the tradition has
been that St. Thomas was not merely a holy man or simply a
prophet, but that he died a martyr, killed by the high caste Hindus
for his missionary work.
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Another obvious argument in favour of the tomb is that a personage
of the stature of an Apostle of Jesus, who did devotedly involve
himself in a mission following the mandate of Jesus, did meet with
his end some time, and was buried somewhere. Beginning with the
Acts of Thomas, the Fathers of the Church, and many a traveler
from Europe have attested in favour of the tomb of the Apostle
Thomas in India. And there is no other place in the world which
claims to possess his tomb. Even if we accept the idea that the
mortal remains or at least the bones of the saint were carried away
to Edessa after he had been interred in India, as attested by the
Acts of Thomas, and thereafter to Chios, and thence to Ortona in
1258, yet the fact that he was buried in Mylapore and that his tomb
rests there has not been challenged so far43.
The early Fathers of the Church like Gregory Nazianzen, St.
Ephrem, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Jerome and the like do seem to
base their writings on the western traditions on the mission of
Thomas which is itself founded on the apocryphal Acts of Thomas.
They make no references to the Mylapore tradition regarding his
death and the presence of his tomb. It is only with St. Isidore of
Seville (d. 638 A.D), that a reference is made about the death of
the Apostle pierced by a lance. And for the first time Calamina is
mentioned as the city in India where the saint was buried with
honour. And subsequent to this there have bean many travelers and
pilgrims who have made references to the tomb of the Apostle at
Mylapore. The Anglo Saxon choncicle, writers and travelers earlier
referred to, like Mar Solomon, Marco Polo, Blesed Odoric, Bishop
Marignolli, and Nicola di Conti — all of them writing between the
9th and 14th centuries positively mention the fact of the tomb of
Thomas at Mylapore.
c. Other Sites related to the Tomb of St. Thomas
The Mylapore tradition regarding the life and death of the Apostle
Thomas would be incomplete if we do not include two other sites
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connected with the death of the Apostle, held sacred by the local
people down the centuries. Both these sites pertain to two hills one
small, and hence known as Chinna Malai or Little Mount, and the
other somewhat big, and known as Periya’ Malai or St. Thomas
Mount. It is appropriate that these two hills are connected with the
life and particularly the death of the Apostle reflecting as it were,
the life and death of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus had withdrawn
himself several times during his lifetime to hills around the places
of his ministry in order to be close to his Father in prayer; and
finally it was on the hill of Calvary that he met with his end thus
concluding his redemptive mission. His disciple Thomas would have
also sought the nearby hills for his own closeness to God and for
his death at the end of his mission here in India. And the two hills
related to the ministry of the Apostle were just a few kilometers
away from the centre of his activities, namely Mylapore. And
interestingly these are the only two hill sites close to Mylapore, now
active parish centres in the city of Chennai.
i. Little Mount44 lying on the banks of the Adyar River to the
south of Mylapore is a hillock about 150 feet high. On this hill is a
cave which was obviously the attraction for the Apostle Thomas to
sit quietly and pray for long hours, a habit which he would have
acquired form his Master Jesus himself. In all probability Thomas
was withdrawing himself there constantly to pray as well as to hide
himself from his enemies, as the hill was also surrounded by an
overgrown wilderness. The cave is about 16 feet long, and 15 feet
wide, with a height of six feet. There is a narrow aperture to the
cave which make entry difficult, and hence concealment easy. The
whole site remains today in the same shape as it should have been
at the time of St. Thomas. At a later stage an altar was placed at
the eastern end of the cave.
There has been a popular tradition about the cave. It seems that the
two feet window-like opening of the cave in the southern side,
which throws some light into the cave, had a miraculous origin. As
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the Apostle was praying his enemies discovered him there and
were about to kill him when this opening came about miraculously
and he escaped through this aperture. There is a small church at
the entrance to the cave obviously built by the Portuguese. The
inscription in a marble tablet at the entrance to the cave reads as
follows:
“The cave where lay hid persecuted just before being
martyred by RAJA MAHADEVAN, king of Mylapore, A.D.
68, THOMAS one of the twelve, the great Apostle of India,
the very one who put his finger into the wounds of his Lord
and God”
The tradition has been that the Apostle died at some distance from
Mylapore, but the body was brought to the house and buried there.
It was believed that it was at the cave of the Little Mount that
Thomas had died. And it was only a later tradition, that is, after the
discovery of the bleeding cross at the Big Mount that the place of
the Apostle’s death was believed to have occurred near that cross.
Since then the tradition has been that St. Thomas was pursued by
his enemies from the cave of the Little Mount, and when he
reached the Big Mount, he was pierced with a lance and killed.
At Little Mount in a rock adjacent to the cave, people also point out
to a spot where there used to be a miraculous spring. There are still
obvious signs of such a spring. It seems when the Apostle used to
preach from the hill to the crowds they were very thirsty and in
need of water to drink. And St.Thomas struck the rock in the
manner of the Old Testament Moses and a spring of water gushed
out satisfying the thirst of the people.
ii. St. Thomas Mount, a name that has been happily appropriated
by the Big Mount some two kilometers to the south of Little Mount,
is another site closely related to Mylapore and the tomb of the
Apostle Thomas. This site which became the Calvary of Thomas
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is about 500 feet high. The tradition is that the saint was pierced
to death with a lance as he was deeply immersed in prayer before
a stone cross which he himself had carved. And this became the
bleeding cross later. It is only this bleeding cross which apparently
helped the tradition of Thomas’ death on the Big Mount . Otherwise
he was believed to have been killed in Little Mount45.
And after his death, his mortal remains were reverently carried
over to Mylapore and laid to rest in the church which the saint had
himself built. It is also said that King Mahadevan and his son
Vijayan took the initiative to arrange for this respect and honour
given to St. Thomas.
Although the name St. Thomas Mount could have been from the
time of the British in the area, who seem to have had their garrison
there, this hill has had a history closely associated with the Apostle.
It is not that he just fled there once to hide himself and then he was
killed there. Just as in Little Mount, St. Thomas apparently visited
this Big Mount many a times for the purpose of quiet prayer. There
is even a tradition that Thomas built a church there as his habit was,
and it was this church which the Armenians renovated about the
year 530.
And people had associated this hill with the saint from the earliest
times to such an extent that a number of Christians particularly
from the West settled down around the hill. And hence it came to
be known as parangi malai, a name that is popular even to this
day. ‘Parangi’ in Tamil is a nickname for the white foreigners.
Some Hindus evidently tried to twist the tradition by proposing that
this mount was the habitat of a Hindu saint by the name ‘Phirangi
munivar’ and even now make efforts to create discord over it.
iv. The Portuguese and the Mylapore Tradition
We had already noted earlier that the Portuguese first arrived in
Malabar in 1500, and it was there that they learnt about Mylapore
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and the presence of the Apostle’s tomb in that city. There have
been some authors who tried to dismiss the entire truth of the tomb
at Mylapore as a Portuguese fraud, possibly in their hatred for their
overzealous colonizing spirit. Among them there could have
certainly been some well-meaning extremists. But the Portuguese
did not definitely invent the tomb, but rather they discovered it with
great enthusiasm and set about to make it popular thanks to their
religious zeal. Martin Gielen speaks of 24 detailed letters and
reports which contain a faithful account of what the Portuguese
found and heard in Mylapore46.
a. Portuguese Interest in the Tomb of St. Thomas
The first contact of the Portuguese with the tomb was in 1515
through a certain traveler and pilgrim Duarte Barbosa; the next to
visit was one Diogo Fernandes in 1517. And both of them have
been profusely impressed about the tomb, and the latter of the two
visitors gives a description of the church which housed the tomb as
26 feet long and 17 feet wide. But he sadly admits that this church
was practically in ruins. This was obviously the church that had
been built by St. Thomas himself. But the grave which was to the
right side of the altar was quite intact.
In 1523 the Portuguese felt the need to do some repair works in the
church. A certain Manuel de Faria, Agent and Captain of the
Fishery and Coromandel Coast officially inaugurated the work and
Fr. Antonio Gil was put in charge of the operation. As they opened
the foundation of the church they discovered some bones, and they
were supposed to have belonged to the first king converted by the
saint who was buried near the tomb of Thomas as a slab indicated.
And then began the solemn operation of opening the tomb of St.
Thomas47.
“At 1 p.m on a Saturday in the month of July in 1523 during the
governorship of Dom Duarte Menezes in Goa they began to open
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the tomb of the Apostle. They first dug ten spars and found round
the grave plastered walls very well made with bricks embedded in
mortar and lime. Having removed the earth there appeared a layer
of bricks and mortar, well finished and about two spans deep. After
removing this layer they found another layer of bricks similar to the
former; at this juncture they stopped and stood still thinking that the
grave had come to an end there. Nevertheless, the witness told
them to go on with the work and to remove that layer of bricks also
and below that they found another layer of loose earth three spans
deep; and having removed this earth they found another layer of
mortar two spans deep, which was so hard that the iron-bars could
not break it. Having, however, laid open this layer of mortar, they
found stone slabs fitting each other, of the same size as those in the
chapel of the Apostle with no inscription; having removed these
slabs they found again a great portion of loose earth. By that time
it was nearly midnight and no bones had yet been found. Then the
witness told the fatigued workmen to stop and take rest until the
following day. On Sunday, early in the morning, they resumed the
work and began to dig up nearly four spans of loose earth - and
found that the sepulchre walls were well plastered downwards and
upwards. At this stage the tomb was sixteen spans deep and they
found some sand and quicklime. Shortly afterwards they began to
find some bones of the skull (cabeca), then those of the spine
(costas) and of the whole body. The witness further stated that at
the foot of the tomb stood an earthen vessel that could contain one
almude (6 gallons) filled with earth. A spear-head entirely of
Malabar iron having the shape of an olive-leaf and struck on a
portion of its wooden shaft was also found in the tomb at the place
corresponding to the thigh. At last they took out all bones that were
much decayed and Fr.Antonio Gil placed them in a small box. The
remaining bones and the grave were underneath the foundations of
the chapel. And the Father sent for Manuel de Faria, who was at
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Pulicat and he came at once bringing with him a china-casket with
two locks...”
We may note few historic evidences from the above description of
the first excavation of the tomb of Thomas, which seems to say
that certain statements of the apocryphal book Acts of Thomas are
basically correct:
i. The bricks used for the tomb are of an ancient character and give
the best testimony. In the year 1945 the Archeological survey of
India excavated a Roman warehouse at Arikamedu about 150
kilometers to the south of Mylapore, on the seacoast. This trading
station is historically attested as having been built in the first
century. The discovery of the bricks used there has thrown much
evidence on the tomb of St. Thomas. The size and quality of bricks
are nearly the same in both attesting to the fact that the tomb of
the saint was built already in the first century, which is not long
after the death of the saint in 72 A.D.
ii. The discovery of an earthen vessel or the kalam at the food of
the tomb which was filled with earth was entirely in accordance
with the declaration made by Bishop Marignoli the papal legate in
1394. He referred to a local tradition that when the saint was
buried, the soil which was stained with the blood of the saint was
reverently placed in a pot and was also buried along with the body.
That seems to have been a great mark of respect to the blood shed
by the saint. And hence arose the tradition which lasted even to our
own times of pilgrims particularly from Kerala collecting some sand
from the tomb and taking it home as a souvenir.
iii. What about the other relics discovered in the tomb? First of all
the finding of the spear-head of iron with a shape of an olive leaf
struck to a portion of a wooden shaft (only a Portuguese writer
could refer to an olive leaf, since olives are not found in India!). Is
it not possible that the disciples of Thomas considered the lance that
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pierced the saint, as the tradition points out even from the time of
the Acts of Thomas, was too sacred to be kept with them, and
hence buried it along with his body?
iv. The most precious of the excavations were none other than the
bones mentioned as of the skull, the spine and the whole body. They
could have been some small pieces of them as all that could be
carefully retrieved had hardly filled a small chest, 11 x 22 cm. And
to what part of the body they belonged to should have been a
skillful surmise, considering the period of nearly 15 centuries since
the burial had taken place. In all probability, bones from adjacent
tombs too (possibly of a disciple of St. Thomas) were also collected
into the casket. And it is quite possible that the major part of the
bones were already transported to Edessa as told by the Acts of
Thomas. Is it possible that some zealous friends of the Apostle
thought that they would be safe only in a totally Christian context
as Edessa then was, rather than in a ‘pagan’ land. Or it is also
possible that St. Thomas himself expressed a desire to be interred
in Edessa where he had first preached the Gospel48.
b. History of the Sacred Remains of St. Thomas
What had happened to the casket of bones? It is said that it was
locked and the key sent to the Governor, Don Duarte. Fr.
Perumalil49 narrates a rather sad history about the precious
contents of the casket.
“After two years, in 1525, Fr. Penteado broke the locks and took
out the bones, placed them in a wooden box and deposited it under
the altar of the Apostle. It was again taken out and was placed in
a big coffer by Miguel Faria, the new Captain of the Coromandel
Coast.” The relics would have still been resting within the old
church. Then began a series of disasters to the town of Mylapore,
which by now was known as Sail Thome, since the Christian
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interest was mostly around the tomb of St. Thomas. There were
constant intrigues among the Portuguese, the French and the British
in the area, to possess the area with the connivance of the Indian
rulers. Plagues, and famines had also tormented the people of the
area 50. The disasters did not stop with these. There were more of
them to come51.
“In the year 1673 the Mohammedans razed the city pf San Thome,
lest the French take possession of it again. And they also razed to
the ground the church of St. Thomas, leaving only the walls of the
sanctuary, ‘which was the very narrow chapel built by St. Thomas
himself. On the 15th of December the king of Golconda gave the
Portuguese permission to rebuild the city. This church built at that
time was most probably the one that was pulled down in 1893 to
make room for the present cathedral”. And this church constructed
by the Portuguese would have been just above the tomb of the
Apostle certainly giving prominence to it. And the vast new gothic
church which was begun to be built in 1893 and was completed in
1896 was set in such a way that it held the tomb in the centre of
the transept.
We should still ask the question as to what has happened to the
relics in the casket? Had they been also destroyed during the above
turmoil? The people around would not have permitted such a
catastrophe, having been quite aware of their precious nature. We
are told that in the year 1559 the kings of Vijayanagar took away
the relics of the Apostle; but having come to know of their sacred
character they sent them back immediately. Thereafter it seems
half of these relics and the a spear-head were taken away by Fr.
Lopo d’Almeida and were given to Bishop Dom Jorge Temudo of
Cochin, who was the first Bishop of Cochin, erected as a diocese
in 1557. But it is also believed that later these relics were
transferred to the church of St. Thomas in Goa, the first diocese of
India erected in 1533. But when this church collapsed, the reliquary
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was supposedly taken to Corlim and it is now to be found in the
church of Ribandar, near Pangim32.
Unfortunately in the most significant church where rests the tomb
of St. Thomas, that is, the Cathedral of St. Thomas, later declared
a Basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1954, nothing has remained of the
relics except the lance point which is . supposed to have pierced the
saint, kept in a monstrance which has served as a reliquary. And
it is only quite recently that a relic of the bone of the saint, which
was graciously donated by Ortona to the late Archbishop Arul Das
James in 1994, finds a venerable place in a monstrance kept in the
present museum of the San Thome Cathedral Basilica.
What happened then to the remaining relics of the saint retrieved
during the excavation of 1523? They could not have been easily lost
given the veneration with which the local Christian community had
held them. Are they hidden in some unknown place? Some believe
so. But it is also suspected that they were probably dispersed
among many churches in Kerala where devotion to St. Thomas
was even greater.
As for those remains of the saint supposedly taken over to Edessa
in the second century for a resting place among the Christian
community there, they too changed places. Edessa became a scene
of some bitter fighting and the remains of the Apostle were
transferred to the island of Chios off the coast of Asia Minor in
1144 to protect them from desecration. And fearing a Muslim
invasion the relics were then transported through a ship in 1258 to
the town of Ortona in italy. The relics are said to have arrived there
on 6th September 1258, and are. still there. The skull of the saint
in particular is still shown and venerated there53.
We have also some interesting information that as the relics of the
saint traveled from Edessa to Chios and then to Ortona, they seem
to have visited such places like Jerusalem, Rome and other
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Christian centers in the West. And even of greater interest is that
great saints like St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Gaudentius of Brescia,
and St. Paulinus of Nola received these relics with great veneration
and retained parts of them for their own churches. And it is even
related that before the French revolution the church of St. Denis in
Paris contained a shrine for a relic on which was the following
inscription in Latin:”Hic est manus beati Thomae Apostoli quam
misit in latus Domini nostri Jesu Christi” which means, “This is the
hand of the Apostle Thomas which he placed in the side of Our
Lord Jesus Christ54.
