Holy Apostle Paul

Life

A native of Tarsus, of the tribe of Benjamin. He was first called Saul, studied under Gamaliel, was a Pharisee and a persecutor of Christianity. He was miraculously converted to the Christian faith by the Lord Himself, Who appeared to him on the road to Damascus. He was baptized by the Apostle Ananias, named Paul, and numbered among the great Apostles. With flaming zeal he preached the Gospel everywhere from the borders of Arabia to Spain, among Jews and among pagans. He received the title of Apostle to the Gentiles. As terrible as his sufferings were, so was his superhuman patience. Through all the years of his preaching he hung day by day as by a single frail thread between life and death. Having filled all his days and nights with labor and suffering for Christ, having organized the Church in numerous places, and having attained that measure of perfection that he could say: "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," he was then beheaded in Rome in the time of Emperor Nero, at the same time as the Apostle Peter.