Holy Apostle Philip

Philip was a Galilean of Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter. He was called by the Lord himself on the day after Andrew's call, with the single word 'Follow me,' and on his way home he found Nathanael, also called Bartholomew, and brought him to the Lord with the invitation 'Come and see.'

He is mentioned by name in each of the four Gospel lists of the Twelve, and the Fourth Gospel gives him three further scenes. He is the disciple to whom the Lord turns at the feeding of the five thousand, to test what he would answer; he is the one to whom the Greeks who came to the feast first put their request, 'Sir, we would see Jesus'; and at the Mystical Supper it is he who asks the question that draws from the Lord the great saying, 'He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.'

After Pentecost the tradition sends Philip into Phrygia and Lydia, where he preached the Gospel with his sister Mariamne and, the older accounts agree, with the apostle Bartholomew. He confronted the cult of the serpent at Hierapolis, and converted the wife of the proconsul. The proconsul, enraged at the loss of his household, condemned the two apostles. Philip was crucified, head-downward in some accounts, and reposed on the cross. Bartholomew, after being released through the prayer of the dying Philip, took the body for burial and went on to other lands.

His memory is kept on the fourteenth of November; the Nativity Fast that begins the next day is sometimes called Philip's Fast, taking its name from the eve.