Saint Mari

Saint Mari, known in Syriac as Mar Mari, is a foundational figure of Christianity in Mesopotamia and is venerated as an apostle of the Church of the East. According to East Syriac tradition he was a disciple of Addai, also called Thaddeus of Edessa, who is himself counted among the Seventy Disciples of Jesus or as a companion of the Apostle Thomas. The principal narrative of Mari's life is the Acts of Mar Mari the Apostle, a Syriac hagiographical text usually dated to the sixth or seventh century. That work is not a contemporary historical record. It belongs to the genre of apostolic acts and mixes missionary itinerary with legendary motifs such as contests with pagan priests, healings, and the conversion of local rulers. No first-century source independently confirms the details of his biography, and modern historians treat the precise course of his journeys as unverifiable.

Tradition holds that after Addai had planted the church in Edessa, Mari was sent eastward to continue the mission. He is said to have preached in Nisibis, in Arbela (modern Erbil), throughout Beth Garmai, and in the villages and towns of the Tigris valley, eventually reaching the twin royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in the heart of the Parthian Empire. There he is credited with establishing the Christian community that later claimed apostolic origin for the catholicate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the patriarchal see of the Church of the East. Hagiography also associates him with the foundation of churches and the overthrow of idol temples, and it places his last years and death at Dur Qunni (Dayr Qunni), south of the royal cities, where a monastery later bore his name.

Whatever the historical kernel of these stories, Christianity was certainly present in northern Mesopotamia and Adiabene by the later second century, and Edessa was an early and important Christian center. The church of Kokhe near Seleucia-Ctesiphon subsequently appealed to Addai and Mari in order to assert apostolic foundation equal to the great sees of the Roman world. That claim is reflected in the ancient East Syriac eucharistic anaphora known as the Liturgy of Addai and Mari, still used by the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church, and regarded as one of the oldest surviving eucharistic prayers. Traditional lists of the Catholicoi-Patriarchs of the East include Mari among the earliest occupants of the see, though the historical catholicate as an organized institution is attested only from the third and fourth centuries onward.

Mari is commemorated as a saint in the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, and other churches of the Syriac tradition. His traditional burial place is the monastery of Dayr Qunni near the site of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in present-day Iraq. Precise years of birth and death are not preserved in sources that meet historical criteria; tradition situates his activity in the first century. His feast is observed on 4 August in a number of calendars of the Syriac churches.