Holy Apostle Paul

Saul was born around the year five in Tarsus of Cilicia to a family of Roman citizens. He was educated at the feet of Gamaliel, the leading rabbi of his generation, and grew into a zealous Pharisee. He held the cloaks of those who stoned the first martyr Stephen, and was on the road to Damascus to arrest Christians when the Lord Himself appeared to him in light and called him by name.

The blinding of Saul became the opening of the Apostle Paul. After three days of prayer in Damascus he was baptized by Ananias, and after a season in Arabia he began the work that would fill the rest of his life. Three missionary journeys, more than ten thousand miles by land and sea, planted the Gospel in cities from Antioch to Corinth to Rome.

His epistles, more than any other writing, gave the early Church the words by which it learned to speak of Christ. Romans, the two letters to Corinth, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, the letters to Thessalonica, Timothy, and Titus, the letter to Philemon, and the long sermon to the Hebrews together fill the second half of the New Testament.

Paul wrote his last letter from a Roman prison, awaiting execution under Nero. He was beheaded on the Ostian Way, traditionally on the same day Peter was crucified, around the year sixty-seven. The Church keeps their feast together on June 29, and his alone on June 30 with the Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles.