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A titular archiepiscopal see in that part of Mesopotamia formerly known as Osrhoene.

The name under which Edessa figures in cuneiform inscriptions is unknown; the native name was Osroe, after some local satrap, this being the Armenian form for Chosroes; it became in Syriac Ourhoï, in Armenian Ourhaï in Arabic Er Roha, commonly Orfa or Urfa, its present name. Seleucus Nicator, when he rebuilt the town, 303 B.C., called it Edessa, in memory of the ancient capital of Macedonia of similar name (now Vodena). Under Antiochus IV (175-164 B.C.) the town was called Antiochia by colonists from Antioch who had settled there.

On the foundation of the Kingdom of Osrhoene, Edessa became the capital under the Abgar dynasty. This kingdom was established by Nabatæan or Arabic tribes form North Arabia, and lasted nearly four centuries (132 B.C. to A.D. 244), under thirty-four kings. It was at first more or less under the protectorate of the Parthians, then of the Romans; the latter even occupied Edessa from 115 to 118 under Trajan, and from 216 to 244, when the kingdom was definitely suppressed to form a Roman province. The literary language of the tribes which had founded this kingdom, was Aramaic, whence came the Syriac.

The exact date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa is not known. It is certain, however, that the Christian community was at first made up from the Jewish population of the city. According to an ancient legend, King Abgar V, Ushana, was converted by Addai, who was one of the seventy-two disciples. (For a full account see ABGAR.) In fact, however, the first King of Edessa to embrace the Christian Faith was Abgar IX (c. 206). Under him Christianity became the official religion of the kingdom. As for Addai, he was neither one of the seventy-two disciples as the legend asserts, nor was he the Apostle Thaddeus, as Eusebius says (Church History IV.13), but a missionary from Palestine who evangelized Mesopotamia about the middle of the second century, and became the first bishop of Edessa. (See DOCTRINE OF ADDAI.) He was succeeded by Aggai, then by Palout (Palut) who was ordained about 200 by Seraphion of Antioch. Thenceforth the Church of Edessa, until then under that of Jerusalem, was subject to the metropolitan of Syria. The aforesaid relations with Jerusalem and Antioch caused in important Syriac literary movement at Edessa of which the city long remained the centre. Thence came to us in the second century the famous Peshitto, or Syriac translation of the Old Testament; also Tatian's Diatessaron, which was compiled about 172 and in common use until St. Rabbula (Rabulas), Bishop of Edessa (412-35), forbade its use. Among the illustrious disciples of the School of Edessa special mention is due to Bardesanes (154-222), a schoolfellow of Abgar IX, the originator of Christian religious poetry, whose teaching was continued by his son Harmonius and his disciples. (See BARDESANES AND BARDESANITES.)

A Christian council was held at Edessa as early as 197 (Eusebius, Church History V.23). In 201 the city was devastated by a great flood, and the Christian church was destroyed ("Chronicon Edessenum", ad. an. 201). In 232 the relics of the Apostle St. Thomas were brought from India, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written. Under Roman domination many martyrs suffered at Edessa: Sts. Scharbîl and Barsamya, under Decius; Sts. Gûrja, Schâmôna, Habib, and others under Diocletian. In the meanwhile Christian priests from Edessa had evangelized Eastern Mesopotamia and Persia, and established the first Churches in the kingdom of the Sassanides. Atillâtiâ, Bishop of Edessa, assisted at the Council of Nicæa (325). The "Peregrinatio Silviæ" (or Etheriæ) (ed. Gamurrini, Rome, 1887, 62 sqq.) gives an account of the many sanctuaries at Edessa about 388.

When Nisibis was ceded to the Persians in 363, St. Ephrem left his native town for Edessa, where he founded the celebrated School of the Persians. This school, largely attended by the Christian youth of Persia, and closely watched by St. Rabbula, the friend of St. Cyril of Alexandria, on account of its Nestorian tendencies, reached its highest development under Bishop Ibas, famous through the controversy of the Three Chapters, was temporarily closed in 457, and finally in 489, by command of Emperor Zeno and Bishop Cyrus, when the teachers and students of the School of Edessa repaired to Nisibis and became the founders and chief writers of the Nestorian Church in Persia (Labourt, Le christianisme dans l'empire perse, Paris, 1904, 130-141). Monophysitism prospered at Edessa, even after the Arab conquest.

Suffice it to mention here among the later celebrities of Edessa Jacob Baradeus, the real chief of the Syrian Monophysites known after him as Jacobites; Stephen Bar Sudaïli, monk and pantheist, to whom was owing, in Palestine, the last crisis of Origenism in the sixth century; Jacob, Bishop of Edessa, a fertile writer (d. 708); Theophilus the Maronite, an astronomer, who translated into Syriac verse Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; the anonymous author of the "Chronicon Edessenum" (Chronicle of Edessa), compiled in 540; the writer of the story of "The Man of God", in the fifth century, which gave rise to the legend of St. Alexius. The oldest known dated Syriac manuscripts (A.D. 411 and 462), containing Greek patristic texts, come from Edessa.

Rebuilt by Emperor Justin, and called after him Justinopolis (Evagrius, Hist. Eccl., IV, viii, Edessa was taken in 609 by the Persians, soon retaken by Heraclius, but captured again by the Arabs in 640. Under Byzantine rule, as metropolis of Osrhoene, it had eleven suffragan sees (Echos d'Orient, 1907, 145). Lequien (Oriens christ., II, 953 sqq.) mentions thirty-five Bishops of Edessa; yet his list is incomplete. The Greek hierarchy seems to have disappeared after the eleventh century. Of its Jacobite bishops twenty-nine are mentioned by Lequien (II, 1429 sqq.), many others in the "Revue de l'Orient chrétien" (VI, 195), some in "Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft" (1899), 261 sqq. Moreover, Nestorian bishops are said to have resided at Edessa as early as the sixth century. The Byzantines often tried to retake Edessa, especially under Romanus Lacapenus, who obtained from the inhabitants the "Holy Mandylion", or ancient portrait of Christ, and solemnly transferred it to Constantinople, 16 August, 944 (Rambaud, Constantin Porphyrogénète, Paris, 1870, 105 sqq.). For an account of this venerable and famous image, which was certainly at Edessa in 544, and of which there is an ancient copy in the Vatican Library, brought to the West by the Venetians in 1207, see Weisliebersdorf, "Christus und Apostelbilder" (Freiburg, 1902), and Dobschütz, "Christusbilder" (Leipzig, 1899). In 1031 Edessa was given up to the Greeks by its Arab governor. It was retaken by the Arabs, and then successively held by the Greeks, the Seljuk Turks (1087), the Crusaders (1099), who established there the "county" of Edessa and kept the city till 1144, when it was again captured by the Turk Zengui, and most of its inhabitants were slaughtered together with the Latin archbishop. These events are known to us chiefly through the Armenian historian Matthew, who had been born at Edessa. Since the twelfth century, the city has successively belonged to the Sultans of Aleppo, the Mongols, the Mamelukes, and finally (since 1517) to the Osmanlis.

Orfa is today the chief town of a sanjak in the vilayet of Aleppo, and has a trade in cotton stuffs, leather, and jewellery. Ruins of its walls and of an Arab castle are yet visible. One of its curiosities is the mosque of Abraham, this patriarch according to a Mussulman legend having been slain at Orfa. The population is about 55,000, of whom 15,000 are Christians (only 800 Catholics). There are 3 Catholic parishes, Syrian, Armenian, and Latin; the Latin parish is conducted by Capuchins, who have also a school. Franciscan nuns conduct a school for girls. This mission depends on the Apostolic mission of Mardin. There are also at Orfa a Jacobite and a Gregorian Armenian bishop.