Tag: apostles

St Matthias, apostle

Today is the feast of the Holy Apostle Matthias, chosen to continue the Mission.

The Church prays in her Liturgy:

Chosen by lot through the grace of the Spirit, you were numbered with the twelve divine Apostles. Proclaiming with them the Word who emptied himself in the flesh for our sake, you were filled by the Lord with wondrous powers. O illustrious Apostle Matthias, entreat him to grant to those who praise your name the remission of sins and great mercy.

Though chosen by lot, as it were, by chance, Matthias still had one supreme qualification for being added to the twelve apostles, he was, in the words of Peter, “one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, become with us a witness to his resurrection.”

Matthias, whose name means “gift of God”, was one of the 72 disciples that Jesus sent out to preach the good news of the Resurrection. There seems to be some early evidence that there was once a Gospel according to Matthias in circulation, but it has since been lost.

Matthias spent three years with the Apostle Andrew, with him at Edessa and Sebaste. Church Tradition indicates he was preaching at Pontine, Ethiopia (presently Western Georgia) and Macedonia.

He was martyred in AD 63.

Grant, O Lord, that we may also be a witness to the resurrection by death to sin by God’s grace, and living in his holiness.

St Timothy

The holy apostle and martyr, Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, is honored by the Church today.

This disciple and companion of St. Paul was put in charge of the christian community at Ephesus (reportedly for 15 years) and is honored as their first bishop. Around AD 97, he was killed by an angry mob, not unlike the silversmiths’ riot triggered by Paul.

The two letters addressed to Timothy in the New Testament are considered by modern scholarship to be compositions of the Pauline community.

The Kontakion for the feast reads:

Let us the faithful praise the Holy Apostle Timothy, the companion of Paul in his travels and together with him let us honor the wise Anastasius, who came as a star from Persia for the healing of the passions of our souls and the diseases of our bodies.

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Saints Peter and Paul –a holy day

The feast day for the Apostles of Rome and early founders of the Church –Saints Peter and Paul– is on Saturday, June 29.

The Divine Liturgy will be served at 9:00 a.m. in English and Ukrainian.

The Church’s spiritual tradition has us observing the Fast of the Holy Apostles (Petrivka) as a way to deepen our relationship with the Lord and His preaching of Salvation through the ministry of Ss. Peter and Paul. The Fast has been observed from Monday after All Saints Sunday until the feast day on June 29 (or July 12 – Julian Calendar).

As a Church we honor the memory of the chief apostles by attending the Divine Liturgy. The Bishops have designated this day as a holy day of love (obligation).

In our catechism, Christ Our Pascha, we read: “The apostles, Christ’s disciples, received the Word of God and proclaimed the good news about him to the whole world. They witnessed to Christ by the word of their preaching and by the example of their lives. The mission of the apostles was taken up by their successors, the Holy Fathers of the Church, who preserved and safeguarded the unbroken continuity of Apostolic Tradition by means of the episcopal succession down to our times.”