St. Mark the Evangelist

John Mark of Jerusalem was the cousin of Barnabas and the son of the Mary at whose house Peter went after his angelic escape from Herod's prison; the upper room there was likely the place of the Last Supper. As a young man he accompanied Barnabas and Paul on the first missionary journey but turned back at Perga, for which Paul later refused to take him again — though the breach healed, and the apostle from prison would write that Mark was profitable to him for the ministry.

He was the close companion and interpreter of Peter at Rome. From the apostle's preaching he wrote the second Gospel, shortest and earliest of the four, with the sharp eye of the eyewitness's recorder — the impatience of the disciples, the green grass on the hillside, the cushion in the stern of the boat. Ancient tradition says he wrote it at the request of the Roman Christians who wished to keep Peter's preaching in a stable form.

After Peter's martyrdom he went south to Alexandria, where he founded the Church of Egypt and established its catechetical school — the school that would produce Clement, Origen, Athanasius, and Cyril. He served as the first bishop of Alexandria and was eventually seized by the pagans during a festival of Serapis, bound about the neck with a rope, and dragged through the streets of the city until he gave up his soul. His relics were taken by Venetian merchants from Alexandria in 828 and rest now in the great basilica of San Marco that bears his name.

His symbol in Christian iconography is the lion — the lion of the wilderness with which his Gospel opens: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." The Liturgy of St. Mark, in shorter and longer forms, remains the historic liturgy of the Coptic and the Greek Orthodox patriarchates of Alexandria. His feast is April 25.