Acts of Apostle Thomas

V AD 51 SOCOTRA MISSION : M. M. NINAN
V
AD 51
SOCOTRA MISSION
Dragon's blood tree (Dracaena cinnabari),
The Indo-Parthian Empire was over ran by the great Kushan Dynasty around 50 A.D, and the
Apostle Thomas set sail to the Southern Parts of India. But tricky as the monsoon winds are he
was shipwrecked and was pushed ashore in the Island of Socoto. According to the traditions of
this Island this was in AD 51. Thomas himself is said to have built the first church out of the
wreckage of the ship itself.
This is quite reasonable knowing that as recent as in 1897, in spite of all the advances in Marine
navigation technology a British Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company ship Aden
sank after being wrecked on a reef near Socotra, , with the loss of 78 lives. In the first centuries,
the island itself was inaccessable to the outside world because of the wind and climatic conditions
of the sea.
Socotra or Soqotra is a small archipelago of four islands in the Indian Ocean. The largest island,
also called Socotra, is about 95% of the landmass of the archipelago. It lies off some
240 kilometres (150 mi) east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres (240 mi) south of the
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