Veneration and the Feast

The chief apostle is honored across the Orthodox world with his fellow coryphaeus Paul on June 29, after the Apostles’ Fast that bears their name; with the whole Twelve on June 30; and again on January 16 for the Veneration of the Precious Chains of the Apostle Peter. This file traces the relics and cult-sites, the place of Peter in the Orthodox calendar and hymnography, and the meaning the Church gives to its veneration of the apostle who was first a fisherman, then a denier, and at last a martyr.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Relics and the Cult-Sites

From the second century the Roman church venerated Peter’s grave on the Vatican hill, the site of the “trophy” (tropaion) to which the presbyter Gaius pointed around A.D. 200 (in Eusebius, HE 2.25.7; trans. NPNF II/1; see Peter at Rome). Over that memorial the emperor Constantine built the first basilica of St. Peter in the fourth century, and over it in turn stands the present basilica, the high altar set above the traditional grave. The modern excavations beneath it (the Scavi, from 1939) confirmed the antiquity of the veneration-site, though the identification of specific bones as the apostle’s remains contested [Disputed: see the discussion and sourcing in [Peter at Rome](../07-rome-and-the-primacy-question/peter-at-rome.md); the second-century veneration of the Vatican grave is secure, the identification of particular relics is not]. Other cult-sites of Rome preserve associated traditions: the church of Domine Quo Vadis on the Appian Way marks the site of the apocryphal encounter (Acts of Peter 35), and the Mamertine Prison is traditionally shown as the place of Peter’s imprisonment. The Orthodox veneration of Peter, however, does not depend on access to relics: the apostle is honored throughout the Orthodox world in icon, hymn, and feast wherever the Church is.

The Feast of June 29

The principal feast is that of the Holy, Glorious, and All-Praised Leaders of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, kept on June 29 in both East and West. The joint commemoration of the two apostles on this date is attested at Rome already in the mid-fourth century (the Depositio Martyrum of A.D. 354), and the Orthodox Church received and keeps the same day (see The Two Coryphaei). The feast is preceded by the Apostles’ Fast (also called the Fast of Saints Peter and Paul, or the Petrine Fast) — a fast of variable length that begins on the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints (the octave of Pentecost) and ends on June 28, the eve of the feast; because its start is tied to the movable date of Pascha, its length varies from year to year (and in some years is very short). The hymnography of the feast titles the two apostles “leaders of the Apostles and teachers of the world,” and asks their intercession for the peace of the world and the great mercy of God upon the faithful (Apolytikion, June 29; Menaion).

The Synaxis of the Twelve

The very next day, June 30, the Church celebrates the Synaxis of the Holy, Glorious, and All-Praised Twelve Apostles — a commemoration of the apostolic college as a whole, in which Peter is honored again, now among his brethren. The juxtaposition is deliberate and characteristically Orthodox: on the 29th, Peter and Paul are honored as the two chiefs; on the 30th, Peter takes his place within the Twelve. The calendar itself thus holds together Peter’s eminence and his collegiality, refusing to isolate him from the apostolic body (a point that bears on the primacy question; see Primacy and the Orthodox Reading).

The Chains of Peter

A further commemoration, kept on January 16, is the Veneration of the Precious Chains of the Holy and All-Praised Apostle Peter — the chains with which Peter was bound in prison at Jerusalem, from which an angel delivered him (Acts 12:1–11). The relic of the chains was venerated at Rome (in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, “St. Peter in Chains”) and the feast entered the Orthodox calendar; its hymns recall both Peter’s imprisonment and his miraculous deliverance, and venerate the chains as sanctified by contact with the apostle’s body. This is one of the clearest instances of the Orthodox theology of relics — that objects sanctified by a saint become vessels of grace — applied to the chief apostle.

Peter in Hymnography and Iconography

Orthodox hymnography returns again and again to the whole arc of Peter’s story, and especially to his repentance. The hymns of the Triodion and of Holy Week invoke “the tears of Peter” as the model of the penitent sinner who weeps and is restored (see The Denial); the Lenten and pre-Lenten services hold Peter’s fall and forgiveness before the faithful as a pattern of their own. The kontakion of June 29 praises the two apostles as “the unshakable and divinely-uttered preachers, the chief of Thy disciples, O Lord.” In iconography Peter is depicted with a broad face, short curly grey hair and beard, holding keys (the keys of the Kingdom of Matt 16:19) and often a scroll; he appears in the icon of the Embrace of Peter and Paul (the Concordia Apostolorum), in the icon of the Twelve, and in narrative icons of the Gospel scenes — the calling, the walking on the water, the Transfiguration, the denial and restoration. The keys he holds are read by the Orthodox tradition as the keys given through Peter’s confession to the whole apostolic ministry, not as the emblem of a single jurisdiction (see The Rock and the Keys).

The Meaning of the Cult

The Orthodox veneration of Peter is veneration of a particular kind of greatness. He is honored not as a flawless prince but as the fisherman who left his nets, the confessor who spoke the Father’s revelation, the friend who denied and wept and was forgiven, the apostle who opened the door to the nations, and the martyr who at last laid down his life on the cross. The Church’s hymns dwell as much on his fall and his tears as on his confession and his keys, because the Orthodox tradition sees in Peter the whole pattern of Christian discipleship: called by grace, fervent and fallible, broken by sin and remade by repentance, and crowned at last by a martyr’s death. To venerate Peter is to be given hope: that the chief of the apostles was also the chief of penitents, and that the same mercy that restored him is offered to every sinner who weeps. As the Church sings, the apostle who was given the keys is the one who first knew himself a sinful man (Luke 5:8) — and that is why the faithful love him.

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible — Acts 12:1–11; Matthew 16:19; Luke 5:8. Cited by book chapter:verse.
  • Menaion, June 29 (Sts. Peter and Paul: Apolytikion, Kontakion), June 30 (Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles), and January 16 (Veneration of the Precious Chains of St. Peter).
  • Depositio Martyrum (Chronograph of A.D. 354). (The June 29 commemoration at Rome.)
  • Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History 2.25.7. Trans. NPNF II/1. (Gaius’s “trophy” on the Vatican hill.)
  • Guarducci, Margherita. The Tomb of St. Peter. New York: Hawthorn, 1960. (The Vatican relics and their disputed identification.)