The Shepherd, June 2007
THIS YEAR, because Pascha was early, June joins July and October in having no Great Feasts. Sometimes Pentecost-Trinity falls within June. The greater part of the month, however, falls within the Apostles’ Fast, which lasts right up to the feasts of Sts Peter and Paul on 29th. This year, their day falls on a Thursday, and so after receiving the Holy Mysteries, or taking the antidoron, on that day we may break our fast.
Other than the Apostles’ feast, the greatest celebration in the month is that of the Birth of the Honourable Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John. This falls on 24th June / 7th July, a Saturday this year, and is usually kept with a Vigil Service. It is kept near the Summer solstice, when, in the Northern hemisphere at least where things are normal, the days are the longest in the year and begin to shorten, just as our Saviour’s Nativity is kept near the Winter solstice when the days are short and begin to lengthen. This is both because the Baptist was born six months before the Saviour, and to remind us of Baptist’s words concerning the Saviour: “He must increase, and I must decrease.” Both this feast and that of the Apostles, although not numbered among the Twelve Great Feasts, are kept for two days each, because of their importance. On that of the Apostles, the second day of the feast is kept as a Synaxis of all the Twelve Apostles.
Other preeminent Apostles also have their celebrations in June, and so on 11th/24th June, we have a feast of the Holy Apostles Bartholomew and Barnabas. St Bartholomew is taken to be the same person as the Nathanael, about whose conversion we hear in the Gospel reading on the Sunday of Orthodoxy each year (Jn 1:43-51). He was numbered among the Twelve. Like St Simon the Zealot, he was from Cana of Galilee. After the day of Pentecost, he journeyed with St Philip preaching the Gospel and bringing people into the Church. In a city called Hierapolis, where they healed a blind man, they were apprehended because the pagan citizens of that place revered as some manifestation of a god an enormous snake, and the Apostles had prayed over this creature and it had died. The mob rose up against them, and the two Apostles were crucified. However, as soon as this was done, there was a tremendous earthquake, which caused the people to think that they had done wrong in executing these preachers, and they were taken down from their crosses. St Philip had already died and received the crown of martyrdom, but Bartholomew was still alive and he recovered. Later he preached in India, and translated the Gospel of St Matthew into one of the local languages there. Then he came back towards the West, and while in Armenia he healed the king’s daughter of madness. However, the king’s brother became envious of the saint, perhaps because he could see his influence on the king waning, and he contrived to have the Apostle crucified again. He was then flayed and beheaded. At his grave many miracles were worked and the Christian community was strengthened and increased by this witness. Seeing this, the pagans had his body exhumed and put into a weighted coffin and cast into the sea. Miraculously, the coffin was not lost, but floated eventually to Lipari, when the local Bishop Agathon, was warned in a dream of its arrival. The relics were retrieved and laid to rest in the church there, although later they were translated first to Benevento and then to Rome. The Saint appeared to St Joseph the Hymnographer (4th / 17th April) and blessed his composition of the sacred songs. He also appeared to the Emperor Anastasius, promising him that he would protect his newly-founded city of Dara.
St Barnabas was from a well-to-do Jewish family living in Cyprus, and his original name was Joseph, but he was nicknamed Barnabas, “the Son of Consolation,” because he was granted a gift of comforting grieving souls. He studied with Saul (later St Paul) under the Rabbi Gamaliel. After the conversion of St Paul, Barnabas who was already a disciple of Christ, was the first to welcome him into the Christian community. The others, of course, were naturally rather suspicious of him as he had been such a zealous persecutor of the Christians in earlier times. He travelled with St Paul and St Mark in their missionary journeys and was the first of all the Apostles to preach in Italy, where, despite later Roman Catholic propaganda, he established the Christian communities at Rome and Milan. He returned to his native Cyprus, where he was stoned to death by members of the Jewish community, who, presumably, thought of him as a turncoat. He was buried near the western gate of the town of Salamis, and people resorted to his grave to pray and there they received healings. However, in time the reason why healings occurred there and the fact that the Apostle was buried there were forgotten, and the place was simply nown as “the Place of Healing.” In 488 A.D., the saint appeared thee times in dreams to the Archbishop Anthimos of Cyprus and revealed the whereabouts of his grave. His incorrupt relics were taken up, and on his cheast there was found a copy of the Gospel of St Matthew which he had transcribed with his own hand. This important find confirmed the apostolic foundation of the Church in Cyprus, and thus the Church there was granted autocephaly from that time.
The Holy Apostle Jude (19th June / 2nd July) was also numbered among the Twelve, and was a kinsman of the Saviour. Like St James the Brother of God, he was the son of St Joseph the Betrothed and Salome. His epistle begins with his calling himself “the brother of James.” It is believed that he refrained from calling himself the Lord’s brother because in the beginning he did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. However, he was converted and numbered among the Twelve, and after the day of Pentecost, he preached throughout the Holy Land and in Idumea, Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Armenia. He was seized by pagan tribesmen, crucified and shot through with arrows, thus crowning his apostolic labours with death as a martyr. 
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