brought to Edessa with the letter. After the Ascension, St. Jude sent Thaddeus (whom they call Addai), who of course at once heals and converts King Abgar, and dies in peace, succeeded by his disciple Aggai. So did the faith come to Edessa.[1] This is the best known of the legends by which so many countries connected their Church immediately with our Lord and the Apostles. Eusebius tells it;[2] the portrait of our Lord was famous all through the Middle Ages, and right over in England before the Conquest people wore a copy of his letter to Abgar as a protection "against lightning and hail, and perils by sea and land, by day and by night and in dark places."[3] It seems true that the faith had been preached in Edessa before its conquest by Septimius Severus (193–211). As soon as these lands became part of the great Empire, their Church entered into closer relations with the Great Church. We hear of one Palut, who went up to Antioch to be ordained bishop. The authority for this early history of Edessa, the "Doctrine of Addai," is anxious to show the connection between its Church and the See of Peter. It tells us that Palut was ordained by Serapion of Antioch, Serapion by Zephyrinus of Rome, Zephyrinus by Victor, his predecessor, and so on back to St. Peter. From this Palut the bishops of Edessa traced their line. And so the Patriarch of Antioch counted these distant East Syrian Churches as part of his Patriarchate, too. From Edessa the faith spread to Nisibis, and when, after Julian's defeat and death (363), the Empire had to give up her border provinces to the Persians, the Christians of these lands still looked to the great bishop in Antioch as their chief, till the Nestorian heresy cut them off from the rest of Christendom.
Another daughter-Church of Antioch beyond the Empire was the Church of Georgia, or Iberia. The apostle of Iberia was a lady, St. Nino, who fled thither during the Diocletian persecution. The king Mirian was converted by her in 318 or 327.
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