Iconography and Cult

The veneration of the Apostle Philip took shape in image, hymn, relic, and shrine: an iconographic type that shows him young and beardless (or lightly bearded), often holding a scroll or a cross and depicted in his crucifixion; the hymnography of his November 14 feast; the relics translated from Hierapolis to Constantinople and to Rome (Santi Apostoli); and the great pilgrimage sanctuary at Hierapolis itself. This file gathers the cultic reception of the apostle.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Iconographic Type

In Orthodox iconography Philip is among the more readily recognized of the Twelve. He is typically depicted as a young man, beardless or only lightly bearded — a convention that distinguishes him from the older, bearded apostles and that, in the festal and Deesis ranks, places him among the younger disciples beside John and Thomas (Ouspensky and Lossky, The Meaning of Icons, on the apostolic ranks). He commonly holds a scroll — the sign of his apostolic preaching — and frequently a cross, the instrument and emblem of his martyrdom. In the icon of his feast and in martyrdom scenes he is shown crucified, in many examples head-downward or bound to a tau- or X-shaped cross, in accordance with the martyrdom tradition (see The Martyrdom); Bartholomew may appear with him in scenes of their shared suffering at Hierapolis (see The Companions). Philip appears, with the other apostles, in the great cycles — the Last Supper (where John 14 is set), the Communion of the Apostles, Pentecost, and the apostolic ranks of the iconostasis.

The Hymnography of the Feast

The propers of November 14, in the Menaion for November, gather the apostle’s Gospel and his tradition into liturgical praise. The hymns celebrate Philip as the disciple called early by the Lord, the one who brought Nathanael to Christ, the seeker who said “Show us the Father,” the preacher of the gospel among the Greeks and the nations, and the martyr who suffered for Christ at Hierapolis (Menaion for November, November 14; The Great Synaxaristes: November). The kontakion and stichera weave the Johannine scenes (the call, the feeding, the Greeks, the great question) together with the mission-and-martyrdom tradition, so that the worshipper meets in one office both the apostle of the Gospel and the apostle-martyr of the Church’s memory. The feast’s place on the eve of the Nativity Fast gives its hymnography a further resonance with the coming Incarnation (see The Feast and the Fast).

The Relics and Their Translation

The cult of Philip was anchored, like that of every apostolic martyr, in his relics and the shrine that held them. The tradition holds that the apostle was buried at Hierapolis, where the great pilgrimage sanctuary arose (see below); that his relics were later translated to Constantinople to preserve them amid the dangers of the age; and that in the sixth century, under Pope Pelagius I, they were conveyed to Rome and laid in the basilica built for the apostles Philip and James — the Basilica of the Holy Apostles (Santi Apostoli), where the relics of Philip and James the Less are venerated to this day (D’Andria, OrthoChristian.com account; Biblical Archaeology Review 37, no. 4, 2011; see The Tomb and the Octagon). The dedication of that basilica to the two apostles is itself an old witness to the translation. [Disputed: the route and dating of the translation of Philip's relics (Hierapolis → Constantinople → Rome, Santi Apostoli, under Pelagius I in the sixth century) rest on the Byzantine and medieval tradition and the Roman dedication; the presence of the relics at Santi Apostoli is well attested, the precise chronology traditional.]

The Sanctuary at Hierapolis

The greatest monument of Philip’s cult is the pilgrimage complex at Hierapolis — the octagonal fifth-century martyrium and the tomb-church built around a first-century grave, excavated and identified (cautiously) by Francesco D’Andria in 2011 (see The Martyrium Found 2011 and The Tomb and the Octagon). The scale of the complex, the worn pilgrim steps, and the bread-stamps and seals bearing the apostle’s name establish that Hierapolis was, from late antiquity, a major center of devotion to Philip — the cult given monumental form. Pilgrims came in their thousands, took away blessing-tokens (eulogiae) stamped with his image, and venerated the tomb even after the relics had been translated away. The sanctuary is the physical witness to a cult that the texts attest from the second century.

Dedications and Memory

Beyond Hierapolis and Rome, churches and chapels dedicated to the Apostle Philip are found across the Orthodox and wider Christian world, and his name is borne by countless faithful. In the West he shares his principal feast (May 3 in the Roman calendar) with James the Less, the two apostles joined by their common shrine at Santi Apostoli; in the East he is kept on his own day, November 14, the herald of the Nativity Fast (see The Feast and the Fast). The cult thus spans East and West, anchored in the Gospel apostle, the Hierapolis martyr, and the relics venerated in Rome — and given, in the 2011 archaeology, an unusually tangible link to the very ground the early Church named as his.

See Also

References

  • The Menaion for November. (The propers of the feast of the Apostle Philip, November 14.)
  • The Great Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church: November. Buena Vista, CO: Holy Apostles Convent. (The synaxarion and hymnography for November 14.)
  • Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky. The Meaning of Icons. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1982. (The iconography of the apostles.)
  • D’Andria, Francesco. “Conversion, Crucifixion and Celebration.” Biblical Archaeology Review 37, no. 4 (2011): 34–46; and “How I Discovered the Tomb of the Apostle Philip,” OrthoChristian.com. (The sanctuary, the pilgrim tokens, the translation of the relics.)