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Of all the twelve Apostles, St. Thomas is said to have travelled the farthest in bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. Shortly after Pentecost, he journeyed to Parthia (an area between the Tigris and the Indus Rivers, which includes modern Iran). He remained there until the year 52, when he travelled on to India. First he came to the Jewish communities along the western Malabar coast. Eventually he proceeded to the south coast of eastern India, on the Bay of Bengal, in Mylapore, which is today part of Chennai (formerly Madras). He was martyred in Mylapore in the year 72. This is all recorded by St. Ephrem of Edessa. To this day, some of his bones can be found in his shrine in Chennai, India, where he was buried. However, between the years 220 and 232, the greater portion of his bones were brought to the city of Edessa, in Mesopotamia (modern Urfa, in Turkey).
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In one story, they were transported by an Indian king named Mazdai (in 232). In another story, it is a merchant named Khabir. Because the Church was still being persecuted by the Roman Empire at the time, the bones were buried outside the city walls. When the persecution ended in 313, a shrine was erected over the grave. Then a church dedicated to St. Thomas was built in the southwest corner of the city. On August 22, 394, Bishop Cyrus I of Edessa translated the bones to the newly-made shrine in the church. This is recorded by Theodoret of Cyrrus. The shrine was also mentioned by the the 4th century pilgrim Egeria, by St. Gregory of Tours, and by St. John Chrysostom.
At that time, some relics of St. Thomas were sent to the cathedrals of Nola, Brescia, and Milan and their saintly bishops, Paulinus, Gaudentius, and Ambrose. In 1102, Baldwin II de Bourcq, French Count of Edessa, gave a left humerus (23 cm. long) from the relics of St. Thomas to a French bishop, who has a cousin of his. The bishop brought it to Bari, where the bishop died the same year. It can be found there in the treasury of the basilica of St. Nicholas to this day.
In 1144, the Turkish general Zangi captured the city of Edessa and either destroyed or desecrated all the churches. The church of St. Thomas he turned into a stable. But by this time, the relics had been removed to a safer location. They were brought to the island of Chios. In 1258, during a war between the republics of Venice and Genoa, during which the Venetians looted islands recently conquered by Genoa, a captain from Ortona, Italy, named Leone Acciaiuoli visited Chios with three galleys, part of the fleet of Prince Manfred of Taranto, who was participating on behalf of Venice. After successfully looting the place, he visited the shrine of St. Thomas and stole most of the bones and the tombstone. He also took with him the guardian of the relics, Fr. Agni Falconiero, as a prisoner and kept him detained in Bari. Chios claims to have retained St. Thomas’ skull. But so does the church of the monastery of St. John the Theologian on Patmos. Acciaiuoli brought the bones back to Ortona, where they arrived September 6, 1258. (The previous month, on August 10th, Manfred had been crowned king of Sicily.) The bones of St. Thomas were placed in the cathedral of San Tomasso, where most of them can be found to this day.
The relics have survived centuries of turbulent events – an earthquake, an attack by the Turks in 1566, a fire, and an attack by the French under General Couthard on February 18, 1799, during which the bones were thrown to the ground. In 1612, the bones were placed in a brass urn, fashioned by Tomasso Alessandini of Ortona. Then, worst of all, Ortona was nearly levelled during the violent defeat of the Nazis occupying the town during World War II. The Canadians fought valiantly and brilliantly. But, by the time the fighting was over, they had blown up the cathedral, along with most of the rest of the city. Their intention was to collapse the dome to prevent the Nazis from using it to fire at them. By this time, a heavy silver reliquary bust of St. Thomas had been hidden under a pile of rubble in the ruined church, and the bones had been hidden in the house of the priest. All has been restored to the rebuilt and refurbished cathedral and may be visited in the crypt.
Otherwise, an index finger bone of St. Thomas is located a reliquary in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. And a right arm bone can be found in a reliquary in the treasury of the basilica of St. Servaes in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The relic of St. Thomas which has just arrived in Morton Grove, is a humerus, which for centuries was part of the treasury of the church of St. Michael in Hildesheim, Germany. In the 1850s, architect Conrad Wilhelm Hase was supervising the renovation of St. Michael’s. One of the supporters of the project was a merchant in town named Johann Franz Bertram.
He and his wife, Caroline, had been married at St. Michael’s, and they were now parishioners. At the time of the reopening of the renovated church in 1857, in gratitude for his support, the rector of the church is recorded to have given our relic of St. Thomas to Bertram. He kept it in his ancestral home. In 1859, their son Adolf was born.
At that time, some relics of St. Thomas were sent to the cathedrals of Nola, Brescia, and Milan and their saintly bishops, Paulinus, Gaudentius, and Ambrose. In 1102, Baldwin II de Bourcq, French Count of Edessa, gave a left humerus (23 cm. long) from the relics of St. Thomas to a French bishop, who has a cousin of his. The bishop brought it to Bari, where the bishop died the same year. It can be found there in the treasury of the basilica of St. Nicholas to this day.
In 1144, the Turkish general Zangi captured the city of Edessa and either destroyed or desecrated all the churches. The church of St. Thomas he turned into a stable. But by this time, the relics had been removed to a safer location. They were brought to the island of Chios. In 1258, during a war between the republics of Venice and Genoa, during which the Venetians looted islands recently conquered by Genoa, a captain from Ortona, Italy, named Leone Acciaiuoli visited Chios with three galleys, part of the fleet of Prince Manfred of Taranto, who was participating on behalf of Venice. After successfully looting the place, he visited the shrine of St. Thomas and stole most of the bones and the tombstone. He also took with him the guardian of the relics, Fr. Agni Falconiero, as a prisoner and kept him detained in Bari. Chios claims to have retained St. Thomas’ skull. But so does the church of the monastery of St. John the Theologian on Patmos. Acciaiuoli brought the bones back to Ortona, where they arrived September 6, 1258. (The previous month, on August 10th, Manfred had been crowned king of Sicily.) The bones of St. Thomas were placed in the cathedral of San Tomasso, where most of them can be found to this day.
The relics have survived centuries of turbulent events – an earthquake, an attack by the Turks in 1566, a fire, and an attack by the French under General Couthard on February 18, 1799, during which the bones were thrown to the ground. In 1612, the bones were placed in a brass urn, fashioned by Tomasso Alessandini of Ortona. Then, worst of all, Ortona was nearly levelled during the violent defeat of the Nazis occupying the town during World War II. The Canadians fought valiantly and brilliantly. But, by the time the fighting was over, they had blown up the cathedral, along with most of the rest of the city. Their intention was to collapse the dome to prevent the Nazis from using it to fire at them. By this time, a heavy silver reliquary bust of St. Thomas had been hidden under a pile of rubble in the ruined church, and the bones had been hidden in the house of the priest. All has been restored to the rebuilt and refurbished cathedral and may be visited in the crypt.
Otherwise, an index finger bone of St. Thomas is located a reliquary in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. And a right arm bone can be found in a reliquary in the treasury of the basilica of St. Servaes in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The relic of St. Thomas which has just arrived in Morton Grove, is a humerus, which for centuries was part of the treasury of the church of St. Michael in Hildesheim, Germany. In the 1850s, architect Conrad Wilhelm Hase was supervising the renovation of St. Michael’s. One of the supporters of the project was a merchant in town named Johann Franz Bertram.
He and his wife, Caroline, had been married at St. Michael’s, and they were now parishioners. At the time of the reopening of the renovated church in 1857, in gratitude for his support, the rector of the church is recorded to have given our relic of St. Thomas to Bertram. He kept it in his ancestral home. In 1859, their son Adolf was born.
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He studied theology at the Universities of Munich, Innsbruck, Wurzburg, & the Gregorian University in Rome. There he earned a doctorate in canon law. He was ordained a priest in 1881, and, in 1906, he was elected bishop of Hildesheim. In 1914, he was elected by the cathedral chapter of Breslau as bishop of that see. Even though the title “prince-bishop” had discontinued in use after Austria and Prussia became republics in 1914. Bertram used it anyway until he was appointed archbishop of Breslau in in 1930. He had been a cardinal since 1916. Bertram’s father had given him the relic of St. Thomas on the occasion of his ordination, and he carried it with him throughout his life. For safer transport, he certified and sealed in in its present reliquary on October 14, 1932. He was chairman of the Fulda Conference of Catholic Bishops from 1919 until his death. Thus he was the highest representative of the Catholic Church in Germany during the Nazi era.
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Throughout most of his time, he remained in Breslau, Though he spoke out in opposition to what he called the immorality and the “Neopaganism” of the Nazi party, and he called the Nazi “Lebensborn” program of vitalism and insemination “institutionalized adultery”, he otherwise declined to say or do much critical of what was going on in Germany during that time – unlike Cardinals von Galen of Munster and von Preysing of Berlin and Bishop Sproll of Rottenburg. As the Soviets were overrunning Breslau in 1945, he fled to the summer residence of the bishops of Breslau, Jansky Vrch Castle in the Czech Republic, where he died a few months later. Our relic remained in the castle until 1992, when it was returned to Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland). There it was acquired by a collector. In 2015, it was resold in a closed on-line auction in Krakow. By 2020, the relic was in Italy. It was acquired by our Shrine of All Saints in September of 2021.
(A note to the skeptical - I have just given you the provenance of this relic that came to us with the relic. I am skeptical that, in the first place, such a treasure was given to Cardinal Bertram’s parents by the rector of St. Michael’s in Hildesheim. I think it more likely that Cardinal Bertram himself took it from the church treasury during his time as bishop of Hildesheim and then certified it later when he became archbishop of Breslau. Fr. Dennis)
(A note to the skeptical - I have just given you the provenance of this relic that came to us with the relic. I am skeptical that, in the first place, such a treasure was given to Cardinal Bertram’s parents by the rector of St. Michael’s in Hildesheim. I think it more likely that Cardinal Bertram himself took it from the church treasury during his time as bishop of Hildesheim and then certified it later when he became archbishop of Breslau. Fr. Dennis)
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