Final Fate of Apostle Matthew

Final resting place of Matthew discovered - or not

Headline in Daily Mail (UK):

Riddle of the lost city under a lake: Was one of Jesus' disciples laid to rest in ancient metropolis in Kyrgyzstan?

Apostle Matthew

Russian divers made the sensational discovery at Lake Issyk-Kul, where another metropolis was uncovered in 2007.

The most astonishing discovery made by the divers was a piece of a ceramic pot with a stamp apparently inscribed in Armenian and Syrian scripts.

This artifact could prove that there was an Armenian monastery on the lake where, according to legend, St Matthew's body and his many relics were buried.

Lake Issykj-Kul
Image from Daily Mail

According to Urantia Paper 139:

When these persecutions caused the believers to forsake Jerusalem, Matthew journeyed north, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and baptizing believers. He was lost to the knowledge of his former apostolic associates, but on he went, preaching and baptizing, through Syria, Cappadocia, Galatia, Bithynia, and Thrace. And it was in Thrace, at Lysimachia, that certain unbelieving Jews conspired with the Roman soldiers to encompass his death. And this regenerated publican died triumphant in the faith of a salvation he had so surely learned from the teachings of the Master during his recent sojourn on earth.

Thrace ca 431-424 BC
Image: Wikipedia

The Urantia Papers do not specify where Matthew's body ended up, but from Northwestern Turkey to Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan is about 4000 miles.

NW Turkey to Lake Issyk-Kul
Image: Google

Further, from the Mail article:

Senior Orthodox churchman Vladimir, Metropolitan of Tashkent and Central-Asia, is on record as saying: 'St Matthew died in Syria.

'His followers, escaping from Rome's persecutions, brought the relics of the Apostle to this land.

'The sanctity was kept in an abbey, located on a beach of Issyk-Kul and all the Christian world knew about this fact.'

Syria - still a long way.