Place · Adriatic port and apostle's relic shrine · Italy
Ortona — Basilica of St Thomas
Also known as Ortona, Basilica of San Tommaso Apostolo, Ortona Cathedral, Duomo d'Ortona, Urtónë, Órtōn
An Adriatic port in Abruzzo whose cathedral basilica has held relics of the apostle Thomas since 6 September 1258, when galleys of Ortona under Leone Acciaiuoli brought them from the Aegean island of Chios. The bones lie in an urn under the altar, with the carved gravestone that came with them in the crypt. The link runs back to India: a Syro-Malabar shrine at Kodungallur now houses bone fragments sent from Ortona, closing the circle the tradition draws from Mylapore to Edessa, Chios and Italy.
- Date
- 1258–None
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered — The 1258 translation is recorded in a 1259 parchment and a sixteenth-century narrative; that the bones are the apostle's is tradition.
- Location
- 42.357, 14.404
Worth knowing
The relics survived a raid in 1566 and the Battle of Ortona in December 1943, when the basilica was blown up and monks walled the relics into the bell tower, the only part left standing. The gravestone from Chios bears the Greek words 'osios thomas', dated on palaeographic grounds to the third to fifth century.
The story of the 1258 translation comes from Giambattista De Lectis, a sixteenth-century Ortona physician, supported by a parchment drawn up at Bari in 1259. How the relics passed from Edessa to Chios is not documented, and the skull is claimed by the monastery of St John on Patmos.
Connections (3)
- Relic distributed toThomas the Apostle
Relics venerated as Thomas's reached Ortona on 6 September 1258, when galleys of the town under Leone Acciaiuoli carried them off from a church on Chios, together with the carved gravestone. The story is told by the sixteenth-century Ortona physician Giambattista De Lectis and backed by a parchment drawn up at Bari in 1259. Thomas is the town's patron, and its basilica is counted with Mylapore and Palayur among the apostle's major shrines.
- Relic distributed toEdessa / Urfa
Edessa's shrine of Thomas was destroyed when the Zengids took the city in 1144, and the reputed relics later surfaced on the Aegean island of Chios. From there in 1258 galleys of Ortona took them, with a chalcedony gravestone inscribed in Greek 'osios thomas' and carved in a manner that recalls Syro-Mesopotamian work. The stone, dated on palaeographic grounds to the third to fifth century, lies in Ortona's crypt and is the main physical link between the Italian relics and their Syrian past.
- Relic distributed toKodungallur & Mar Thoma church
The circle closes in Kerala: the Saint Thomas pontifical shrine at Azhikode in Kodungallur, kept by CMI monks of the Syro-Malabar church, houses bone fragments of the apostle brought from the basilica at Ortona. Kodungallur is where tradition says Thomas first landed in 52 CE, so relics that left India for Edessa, Chios and Italy have partly returned to the place of the landing. The fragments' identity as the apostle's rests on Ortona's own tradition.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Ortona", "Basilica of San Tommaso Apostolo, Ortona" and "Thomas the Apostle". Herbert Thurston, "St. Thomas the Apostle", Catholic Encyclopedia (1913).
Open Ortona — Basilica of St Thomas in the repository →