Mar Addai

One of the Seventy-Two Disciples of Jesus mentioned in the New Testament, Mar Addai is also known as St. Jude Thaddeus. According to an ancient tradition, a king of Edessa named Abgar wrote Jesus a letter asking for healing. Jesus responded that he could not come himself, but that he would send a messenger to heal him. It was Addai whom Jesus sent to King Abgar in response to the King’s letter asking for healing. After Pentecost, Addai brought with him an “Image of the Lord,” (which some associate with the burial cloth of Christ) and with it healed the King, who immediately converted to Christianity, along with his small kingdom.

Addai continued to preach the Gospel on the borderlands of Mesopotamia, establishing the Faith and sending disciples even further East. He is said to have died in peace, honored by the kingdom to whom he brought the Gospel. Mar Addai is also credited, along with his disciple Mar Mari, with composing the Eucharistic Prayer most commonly used in our Church, called the Anaphora of Addai & Mari. It is the most ancient Eucharistic Prayer used in the entire Catholic Church.
 

Excerpt taken from the Quddasha of Addai and Mari

We give thanks to you, O Lord, we your deficient, feeble and miserable servants, because you have done us a favor that cannot be repaid, in that you put on our humanity in order to quicken us by your Divinity, you lifted up our lowliness, righted our fall, raised up our mortality, forgave our debts, made righteous our sinfulness, enlightened our understanding, defeated our enemies, and made our deficient nature triumphant through the overflowing mercies of your grace.

And for all your benefits and graces towards us, we lift up glory, honor, thanksgiving and adoration to you, now at all times and forever and ever.


(Prayer taken from: The Rite of the Divine Mysteries of the Church of the East of the Chaldeans and Assyrians)