APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST MARK

On May 8, the Churches following the Julian calendar celebrate the memory of the Apostle and Evangelist Mark. In his First Catholic Epistle, Peter refers to Mark as “his son,” obviously referring to spiritual sonship (1 Pet. 5:13). Mark was not one of the Twelve Apostles. According to Tradition, he was an Apostle of the Seventy.

The number 70 in relation to the Apostles was biblically extremely important. As its prototype, it directly pointed to the seventy elders of Israel, whom, at the command of God, Moses chose to help him (Numbers 11:26).

In relation to the four Evangelists, two of whom, Mark and Luke, were Apostles of the 70, the memory of this expanded apostolic circle, especially reminded the first Christians from Jews and pagans about the translation of the Bible into Greek by seventy interpreters, those who, by the will of the Egyptian Ruler Ptolemy II Philadelphus (284-246), carried out this great translation starting from the 3rd century BC. The Church believed that the “Septuagint”, as the Greek translation was called, was inspired. This means that, like the original Hebrew text of Scripture itself, this translation of the sacred books into Greek was also moved by the Holy Spirit.

It is important that the recognition of the inspiration of the biblical translation into Greek, made before the birth of Christ, gave legitimacy to the fact that, unlike the Old Testament, the New Testament Scriptures were originally written in Greek. Let us note that in the understanding of the early Christian community, inspiration, first, meant historicity, that is, the correspondence of what was written to what happened in history according to God’s plan for the salvation of the world. One of the great theologians of our time called his reflection on Jesus the history of the One Living One.

Again, Mark was not one of the Twelve Apostles. However, the significance of his name in the emergence of the first Christian communities is colossal. According to Tradition, Mark preached in Palestine, participated in Paul’s travels, managed to visit Rome, where he helped Peter, and finally founded the Church of Alexandria. In the Egyptian Capital he ended his life in martyrdom. A lot can be said about the Apostle Mark. The Gospel of Mark, the apostolic works, veneration in the Ancient Church, and much more. Surprisingly, the name of the Evangelist is closely connected with the issue of primacy in the Ancient Church.

The fact is that in the first centuries Orthodox Christianity had to wage a very difficult polemic with Gnosticism. The Gnostics falsely taught that true teaching is transmitted from God through knowledge and does not need church mediation. The Church teachers of that time opposed this with the doctrine that the truth is preserved in the apostolic Churches, that is, the Churches founded by the Apostles themselves.

Mark - Apostle and disciple of Peter founded the Church in Alexandria. It was it who was the primacy of the Church in the entire Orthodox East until 451, when the Fourth Ecumenical Council, in an apparently controversial decision, transferred this primacy to Constantinople, the new capital of the Empire, founded by Emperor Constantine in 330. Of the five Patriarchates that had emerged by that time, three were ‘Petrine’.

They are called so because the churches in Antioch, the city where ‘the disciples first began to be called Christians’ (Acts 11:26), Alexandria (through Mark), and Rome were founded by Peter. The other two Patriarchates, Constantinople and Jerusalem, were founded or revived, as in the case of the Holy City, by Emperor Constantine. This primacy of the Patriarchates was called ‘political’, or ‘Constantinian’.

In addition to decisions on the structure of the Church, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 formulated a doctrine of Christology, which was proper for Rome and Constantinople, but seemed new and erroneous for Alexandria, Syria and Palestine. In 519, half of the Antiochian Church began an independent existence with its own patriarch and hierarchy; in 536, according to the same principle, the separation of all Egypt from the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria took place. “You must have differences,” wrote the Apostle Paul (1 Thess. 5:14).

However, centuries later, the difference, by human will, turned into confrontation. Then, many centuries later, Constantinople and Rome also broke off mutual Eucharistic communion. But every year, on May 8 (April 25), despite all divisions, Churches throughout the Universe celebrated and will celebrate on this day the memory of Mark, the great disciple and true son of the Apostle Peter in Christ.