A homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Christian Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers, for the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, 7533 (2025).
More than a quarter century ago, I was preparing for baptism into the Holy Orthodox Church, like the newly illumined little Cecelia this morning at our Church. But I was an adult convert, like the new catechumens we are blessed to have at our parish.
In selecting a saint’s name, I expressed a preference for a Celtic Saint, Saint Kentigern of Glasgow, also known as Saint Mungo or Kyndeyrn. He was a sixth-century saint in a time and region that fascinated me as a kind of bridge between the old Roman culture and later Christian Celtic cultures of the British isles, from whence came some of my ancestors. I had spent time in school in Britain studying Celtic saints and visiting some of the holy places associated with them. Although that was before I really started my journey into Orthodoxy, it started then in the spiritual realm by the influence of their holy presence and intercession, I am sure.
At the time of my baptism, my Greek Orthodox priest said, we can baptize you with the Celtic saint’s name Kentigern, but the Greek Bishop will come and he won’t know that name when you come up for communion. So I was also given a Greek saint’s name, so to speak, Pavlos, the name of Paul for the Apostle. He was of course a Jew. But he also spoke and composed his Epistles in Greek and helped shape the Greek Christian world with his missionary work, and was a Roman citizen, too. So I was blessed with a reminder of how Orthodoxy is One Holy Apostolic Catholic Church, as the Creed says.
For years, until I was made a Reader, and even afterward in private, my full Church name was Kentigern Pavlos or Kentigern Paul. That reminder was of how all the saints are related, and how we are related through our saints’ names at baptism and chrismation to the saints. We are all in a Church family together. We are not alone and never without friends in the Church. A saint may be more locally known, like Kentigern, who lived in the time period and in a part of the world where legends say King Arthur also lived. Small Celtic realms preserved Christianity with monasteries and many local saints who tended and extended the Gospel and the Orthodox Church in the remnants of the Roman Empire in the western isles. They prepared the way for another great missionary effort converting the Anglo-Saxons, the Germans and Franks, and the Vikings. It was the Vikings who also had helped found what became Russia, the largest Orthodox land in the world today and the source of our Orthodox tradition.
But the Apostle Paul, together with the Apostle Peter, they are universal founding saints of the Church, following of course the Theotokos who is in a special place all her own as the greatest of saints. Orthodox iconography of the leaders of the Apostles, such as the icon before us in Church today, shows the two holding the Church of Christ up. They both did so much missionary work, much of it recorded in the Acts of the Apostles written by their fellow Apostle and Evangelist Luke, and common heritage to us all in the Bible.
Yet they are in the same Church family as the frontier saint from what became much later the city of Glasgow, Kentigern, whose rural home was in a small kingdom that vanished and few knew, but who labored to spread the Gospel and who founded new churches and monasteries, parishes probably small like our own, like so many of the early Celtic missions. He is one of the saints of the West reclaimed by the Orthodox Church today, thanks in good part to the work of our patron Saint John in the twentieth century.
Saint Gregory Palamas, one of the great Orthodox saints, had important things to say in a homily for our feast in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul, applicable to the Church as a whole, including here in America today and at our parish.
St Gregory wrote of how the Devil “heard the Creator saying to Peter: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church (Matt. 16:18). Once the prince of evil found this out, being the epitome of wicked envy, he tempted Peter, the first leader of God’s faithful people, as he had previously tempted Adam, the founder of the race of men. Realizing that Peter was endowed with intelligence and afire with love for Christ, he did not dare make a direct attack. Instead he came upon him from the right flank, cunningly deceiving him into being excessively eager….He also exalted himself above the others, saying that even if everyone else were offended, he would not be (Matt. 26:33). Because he had been beguiled into arrogance, he fell further than the rest, so that by humbling himself more than them he might eventually appear more radiant. Unlike Adam who was tempted, vanquished and completely brought down, Peter, having been tempted and led astray a little, overcame the tempter. How? Through his immediate condemnation of himself, his intense sorrow and repentance, and the medicine which brings forgiveness, tears….
“Wishing to demonstrate this to everyone, the Lord, after His Passion in the flesh for our sake and His rising on the third day, used those words to Peter which we read in today’s Gospel, asking him, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me more than these (John 21:15), meaning, “more than these disciples of mine”. But see how much humbler he has become…. now, on being asked whether he loves Him more than the others do, he affirms that he loves Him, but leaves out the word “more”, saying Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee (John 21:15, 16, cf. 17).
“What does the Lord do? Since Peter has shown that he has not lost his love for Him and has now acquired humility as well, He openly fulfils the promise made long before and tells him, Feed my lambs (John 21:15). When He was referring to the company of believers as a building, He promised to make Peter the foundation stone, saying, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church (Matt. 16:18). On the other hand, when He was talking in terms of fishing, He made him a fisher of men with the words, From henceforth thou shalt catch men (Luke 5:10). But when He speaks of His disciples as sheep, He sets Peter over them as a shepherd, saying, Feed my lambs, feed my sheep (John 21:15-17). It is clear from this that the Lord’s desire for us to be saved is so great, that He asks of those who love Him only one thing: to lead us to the pasture and fold of salvation.
“…Peter not only confessed that he loved Him, but also proclaimed that the Lord he loved was God over all (Rom. 9:5), by saying, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee, because only God Who is over all is all-knowing. Once Peter had made this heartfelt confession, the Lord ordained him Shepherd and Chief Pastor of His whole Church, and also promised to encompass him with such strength, that he who previously was unable even to stand being spoken to and questioned by a young girl (John 18:17), would endure unto death, even death on a cross.”
“….As for Paul, on the other hand, what tongue or how many and what sort of tongues can depict even to a limited extent his endurance unto death for Christ’s sake? He was put to death every day, or rather he was always dead, no longer alive himself, as he tells us, but having Christ living in him (Gal. 2:20). For love of Christ he not only counted everything in the present world as dung (Phil. 3:8), but even put things to come in second place compared to the Lord. For I am persuaded, he says, that neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (cf. Rom. 8:38-39). He had zeal for God, and was jealous over us with divine jealousy (2 Cor. 11:2). The only one to equal him in this was Peter, but hear how humble he is when he says of himself, I am the least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an Apostle (1 Cor. 15:9).
“Given that Paul made the same confession of faith as Peter, and had the same zeal, humility and love, surely they received the same rewards from Him Who measures everything with completely just scales, yardstick and plumbline. Anything else would be unreasonable. That is why the Lord told Peter, Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church (Matt. 16:18), whereas He said to Ananias of Paul, He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings (Acts 9:15). Which name? Clearly the name we have been given, the name of Christ’s Church, which rests on the foundation stone of Peter. Notice that Peter and Paul are equal in prominence and glory, and both hold up the Church…. As we consider the outcome of their lives, let us imitate how they lived, or at least how they were restored through humility and repentance….
”….When Peter resorted to repentance, he not only recovered from his fall and obtained forgiveness, but was also appointed to protect Christ’s Church. As you see, Paul too was rewarded with this role after his conversion, once he had made progress and become more closely God’s own than the others. Repentance which is true and truly from the heart persuades the penitent not to sin any more, not to mix with corrupt people, and not to gape in curiosity at evil pleasures, but to despise things present, cling to things to come, struggle against passions, seek after virtues, be self- controlled in every respect, keep vigil with prayers to God, and shun dishonest gain. It convinces him to be merciful to those who wrong him, gracious to those who ask something of him, ready with all his heart to bend down and help in any way he can, whether by words, actions or money, all who seek his assistance, that through kindness to his fellow-man he might gain God’s love in return for loving his neighbour, draw the divine favour to himself, and attain to eternal mercy and God’s everlasting blessing and grace.”
St. Gregory concludes, “May we all attain to this by the grace of the only-begotten Son of God, to Whom belong all glory, might, honour and worship, together with His Father without beginning and the all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and for ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”