Holy Apostles Bartholomew and Barnabas

The Church joins two apostles on this day. Bartholomew, one of the Twelve, is by widespread (though not certain) tradition the same as Nathanael of Cana, the guileless Israelite whom Christ saw under the fig tree; later accounts send him east to preach in 'India' and Armenia, where he is said to have been flayed and beheaded at Albanopolis — the Armenian Church honors him with Thaddeus as its apostolic founder. Barnabas, chief of the Seventy, is firm New Testament ground: a Levite of Cyprus named Joseph, renamed 'son of encouragement,' who sold his field for the apostles, vouched for the newly converted Saul at Jerusalem, brought him to Antioch, and shared the first missionary journey until they parted over John Mark. Tradition reports his martyrdom by stoning at Salamis in his native Cyprus, whose church claims him as founder and grounds its ancient autocephaly on him.