The Feasts

The Orthodox Church keeps the memory of the Apostle Bartholomew on three principal days: June 11, his chief feast (shared with the Apostle Barnabas); August 25, the feast of the translation of his relics (kept together with the Apostle Titus); and June 30, the Synaxis of the Holy Twelve Apostles. This file sets out the feast-days, their content, and the hymnography by which the Church commemorates the apostle.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

June 11: The Chief Feast

The principal commemoration of the Holy Apostle Bartholomew in the Orthodox calendar falls on June 11, where he is celebrated together with the Apostle Barnabas (one of the Seventy). This is the apostle’s main feast-day, on which the Church reads the appointed apostolic readings, sings the office of the apostle from the Menaion, and recalls his place among the Twelve, his guileless confession of Christ (John 1:47–49), his missionary labors, and his martyrdom (Menaion, June 11; the Synaxarion for the day). In the Orthodox liturgical books the apostle is honored on this day as one of the Twelve and as a martyr for Christ.

August 25: The Translation of the Relics

A second major commemoration falls on August 25, kept as the feast of the translation (or “uncovering” / return) of the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew, celebrated together with the Apostle Titus (one of the Seventy, the companion of St. Paul). The feast of August 25 commemorates the movement and enshrinement of the apostle’s relics — the translation-history that, in the Western tradition, carried them from Lipari to Benevento and Rome (see The Relics and Their Journeys) — and it gives the Orthodox Church a second annual occasion to honor the apostle, focused on the gift of his relics and the grace that flows from them (Menaion, August 25; the Synaxarion for the day). The keeping of a distinct feast for the translation of relics is the Church’s normal way of honoring the bodily remains of a great saint as themselves holy and grace-bearing.

June 30: The Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles

The apostle is further commemorated on June 30, the Synaxis of the Holy, Glorious, and All-Praised Twelve Apostles (Synaxis meaning the gathered commemoration). This feast, kept on the day after the great feast of the chief apostles Peter and Paul (June 29), gathers into one celebration the whole college of the Twelve — Peter, Andrew, James and John the sons of Zebedee, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Jude (Thaddaeus), Simon the Zealot, and Matthias who replaced Judas. On this day Bartholomew is honored not individually but as a member of the apostolic band sent by the Lord to disciple all nations (Matt. 28:19); the feast is the Church’s annual commemoration of the Twelve as a body (the Synaxarion for June 30; the Menaion for the day).

The Hymnography

The office of the apostle draws on the common hymnography of an apostle and on the proper hymns of the day. The festal texts celebrate the apostle as one of the Twelve who, sent out by the Lord, “drew the nations into the net of the Gospel,” who confessed Christ the Son of God, and who sealed his preaching with his blood. The Church’s hymns dwell on his guilelessness — recalling the Lord’s word, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile” (John 1:47; see An Israelite Without Guile) — and on his martyrdom for Christ, and they call upon his intercession for the faithful. The kontakion and troparion of an apostle, sung on his feast, place Bartholomew in the company of the heralds of the faith whose sound has gone out into all the earth (cf. Ps. 19:4; Rom. 10:18).

The Calendar and the Julian–Gregorian Difference

A practical note on dating: the dates given here — June 11, August 25, June 30 — are the dates of the Church calendar. For the Orthodox Churches and monasteries that follow the older Julian calendar (the “Old Calendar”), these feasts fall, in the civil (Gregorian) reckoning of the present era, thirteen days later — so that June 11 (Julian) corresponds to June 24 (civil), and so on. Churches following the Revised Julian calendar (the “New Calendar”) keep these fixed feasts on the same civil dates as given. The feast-days themselves are identical across the Orthodox world; only the civil date on which they are observed differs, according to the calendar a given Church follows (on the liturgical calendar and the Great Feasts, see Orthodoxy: The Great Feasts).

The Apostle in the Cycle of the Year

Taken together, the three commemorations give the Apostle Bartholomew a well-marked place in the Orthodox liturgical year: his own feast in June (the 11th), his presence in the gathered Synaxis of the Twelve (the 30th of the same month), and the feast of his relics in late summer (August 25). The faithful who keep these days are joined to the ancient and universal veneration of one of the Twelve — the guileless Israelite whom the Lord called, who carried the Gospel to the nations, and who gave his life and his very skin for Christ. The feasts are the living continuation of that veneration, the means by which the apostle’s memory is kept and his intercession sought, year by year, throughout the Orthodox world.

See Also

References

  • The Menaion for June 11 (the Holy Apostle Bartholomew and the Apostle Barnabas); for August 25 (the translation of the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew and the Apostle Titus); and for June 30 (the Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles).
  • The Holy Bible, King James Version. (John 1:47; Matt. 28:19; Ps. 19:4; Rom. 10:18.)
  • Hapgood, Isabel F. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church. New York, 1922. (The common office of an apostle.)