were customary in the holy places were done; we read also some things concerning saint Thomas himself. The church there is very great, very beautiful and of new construction, well worthy to be the house of God, and as there was much that I desired to see, it was necessary for me to make a three days' stay there. According to Theodoret of Cyrrhus, the bones of Saint Thomas were transferred by Cyrus I, Bishop of Edessa, from the martyrium outside of Edessa to a church in the south-west corner of the city on 22 August 394. In 441, the Magister militum per Orientem Anatolius donated a silver coffin to hold the relics. In AD 522, Cosmas Indicopleustes (called the Alexandrian) visited the Malabar Coast. He is the first traveller who mentions Syrian Christians in Malabar, in his book Christian Topography. He mentions that in the town of "Kalliana" (Quilon or Kollam) there was a bishop who had been consecrated in Persia. In 1144, the city was conquered by the Zengids and the shrine destroyed. Chios and Ortona The reputed relics of Saint Thomas remained at Edessa until they were translated to Chios in 1258. Some portion of the relics were later transported to the West, and now rest in the Cathedral of St. Thomas the Apostle in Ortona, Italy. However, the skull of Thomas is said to be at Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on the Greek island of Patmos. Ortona's three galleys reached the island of Chios in 1258, led by General Leone Acciaiuoli. Chios was considered the island where Thomas, after his death in India, had been buried. A portion fought around the Peloponnese and the Aegean islands, the other in the sea lapping at the then Syrian coast. The three galleys of Ortona moved on the second front of the war and reached the island of Chios. The tale is provided by Giambattista De Lectis, physician and writer of the 16th century of Ortona. After the looting, the navarca Ortona Leone went to pray in the main church of the island of Chios and was drawn to a chapel adorned and resplendent with lights. An elderly priest, through an interpreter informed him that in that oratory was venerated the Body of Saint Thomas the Apostle. Leone, filled with an unusual sweetness, gathered in deep prayer. At that moment a light hand twice invited him to