St. Peter, Chief of the Apostles

Simon, son of Jonah, a fisherman of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee, was the brother of Andrew and the partner of the brothers James and John in a small fleet. The Lord called him from his nets with the single word "Follow Me," and from that day Simon walked with Him as the foremost of the Twelve. At Caesarea Philippi, when the Lord asked who men said He was, it was Simon who answered: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" — and was given for his confession the new name Cephas, the rock.

He was the disciple of impulses, walking out upon the water until he saw the wind, drawing the sword in the garden, and at the courtyard fire denying his Master three times by a charcoal blaze. Yet to him alone the risen Lord came in private on the morning of Pascha, and at another fire by the lake of Tiberias He gently asked three times for the love that three times had failed. With "Feed My sheep" the apostle was restored, and at Pentecost his voice was the first to preach the resurrection — three thousand souls were added to the Church that day.

He led the Twelve through the early years at Jerusalem, presided over the baptism of the first Gentile household, escaped Herod's prison by angelic deliverance, and at the apostolic council defended the freedom of the nations from the yoke of the Law. From Antioch — where he was the first bishop and where the disciples were first called Christians — he eventually came to Rome, and there during the Neronian persecution of about the year 67 he was crucified head-downward at his own request, judging himself unworthy to suffer in the same manner as his Lord.

The Church reckons him with Paul as one of the two coryphaei of the apostolic college, and keeps their joint feast on June 29. His two catholic epistles, the first written to comfort the Christians of Asia Minor under persecution and the second a final testament against false teachers, remain in the New Testament.