Glorious and all-validated chief apostles Peter and Paul

Every year on July 12, believers celebrate the day of remembrance of the apostles Peter and Paul. The cult of these saints arose in Rome almost immediately after their death, but in Rus’ it acquired special features, rooted in the era of Epiphany.

It is known that the martyrdom of Christ’s disciples made their burial places a center of attraction for the first Christian communities. Three centuries later, Constantine the Great consolidated the tradition with the construction of temples in the two capitals of the empire. The liturgical texts of the holiday, scheduled for the end of June according to the Julian calendar, emphasize the contrast of two paths: the figure of Peter symbolizes the overcoming of renunciation, the figure of Paul symbolizes the transition from persecution to preaching.

The East Slavic lands took the baton of veneration along with Christianity. The oldest artifact associated with this tradition is an icon taken by Prince Vladimir from Korsun. Later, the image was transferred to the main temple of Novgorod, where to this day you can see wall paintings with Peter, made by masters of the eleventh century. No less ancient images of both preachers were recorded by researchers in the interior of the Kyiv Sophia.

The monastic tradition was marked by the appearance of the Peter and Paul monasteries by the end of the 12th century. Chronicles indicate the founding of a monastery in Novgorod, on Sinichya Mountain, in 1185. In parallel, a similar complex was erected in Rostov, and in the next century a monastic community was mentioned in Bryansk. Anthroponymy also reflected popular recognition: many ascetics of the pre-Mongol era were named after the apostles.

The visual tradition reached its peak in the work of Andrei Rublev. The images of Peter and Paul painted by the master are considered canonical. Their figures have firmly become part of the central part of the temple iconostasis, becoming an indispensable element of the Deesis row in Russian churches.