SYNAXIS OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES

The day after the feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, July 13 (June 30), the Orthodox Church celebrates the Council of the Holy Apostles. In the Ancient Church, celebrations in honor of saints were not celebrated daily. Thus, one of the oldest calendars that has come down to us, the calendar of the Roman Church of 354, contains only about twenty days a year on which the memory of the saints was supposed to be celebrated. The name “Synaxis”, in relation to the liturgical celebration, meant that on this day the Church gathered together for worship.

The Ancient Creeds call the Church “Apostolic.” The Lord Jesus chose 12 Apostles, laid his hands on them and sent them to preach. The apostles founded communities and in turn ordained bishops as their successors. The church hierarchy is based on this chain of continuous succession of laying on of hands. The teaching of the Church is Orthodox only to the extent that it is based on the teaching of the Apostles. In the Holy Spirit, the Apostles wrote the texts of the New Testament Scriptures.

At the Liturgy of the Synaxis of the 12 Apostles, the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians is read (1 Cor. 4:9-16). In this liturgical reading there are the following words: “We are like rubbish to the world, like dust trampled upon by everyone to this day (13).” The letter to the Corinthians was written by Paul in Ephesus in the spring of 54. It was part of the Apostle’s large correspondence with the Corinthian Community. Paul founded the Church and preached in Corinth for a year and a half. But during his absence from the community of this rich port city, which was the most important trade bridge between the East and Rome, Christians were divided among themselves.

Apparently, the more educated and richer began to oppress their neighbors and, thereby, return to the old pagan way of life. In his Epistle, Paul reminds us that the persuasiveness of the apostolic preaching that the Corinthians heard was manifested not in strength, but in weakness, not in power, but in humility. Because Christians are strong only through the Cross of the Lord Jesus. In accordance with this, the Ancient Church called itself “Apostolic” not only because of the succession of ordination and teaching, but also because it breathed brotherly love and was poor.