Saint Thomas

Since that time, the faith was preserved for a very long time in the country, such that the bishops of the Indies were even called to the General Councils of the Church. But, in the following centuries, it weakened so much and admitted so many errors that it was in danger of being entirely ruined, had not a Syrian of great merit, nam ed Marit ome, that is to say Lord Thomas, traveled there by an inspiration of God, and re-established the almost abolished religion there.

The good he did there was marvelous, and Christianity became so flourishing through his means that missionaries went forth from it for the conversion of other oriental nations; and this is what gave the name of Patriarch of the Indies to the metropolitan of India and China. However, Nesto rianism later entered these Churches, and with Nestorianism a strange mixture of all its errors, which gave cause in the 16th century for the kings of Portugal to send missionaries there to purge the Lord's threshing floor.

In 1522, they found there the sacred bones of the holy Apostle, in an ossuary that still remained among the ruins of the city of Mylapor e, and th ey transported them to Goa wit h m arvelous pomp and solemnity. The city of Mylapore then changed its name by the order of King John III, and took that of Saint Thomas. The stone upon which he had been massacred was placed in his chapel, at the back of the altar.

As we find in all martyrologies two much older translations of the body of Saint Thomas: one, from the Indies to Edessa, in Syria; the other, from Edessa to Ortona (Abruzzo Citeri ore), which gave cause to build very magnificent churches for him, and whose pilgrimage has always been very famous, it must be said, with Cardinal Baronius, t hat the holy reli cs of this Apostle were divided, and that one part remained in the Indies where it was discovered in 1523, and the other transferred very anciently to Edessa. And these different parts have led to the claim that the body of Saint Thomas was in these different places.

France was not entirely deprived of such a great treasure: for before the Revolution, there was shown at Notre-Dame de Chartres a notable bone from an arm of this Apostle; and at Saint-Denis, the right hand which he placed in the side of Our Lord. The reliquary in which it was enclosed was given by J ohn, Duke of Berry , third son of King John; the following inscription was engraved upon it: Hæc est manus beati Thomæ, apostoli, quam posuit in latus Domini nostri Jesu Christi.

This narrative i s by Fath er Giry; but we have revised and completed it.