Saint Peter, a fisherman from Bethsaida, was the first of the Twelve called by Christ. It was Saint Peter who confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” drawing the Lord’s declaration that on this rock He would build His Church. After Pentecost, Saint Peter preached boldly, worked signs and wonders, and wrote two epistles before eventually reaching Rome.
Saint Paul’s road to Christ ran the opposite direction. Born in Tarsus, trained as a Pharisee, he held the coats of the men who stoned Stephen and carried letters authorizing the arrest of Christians in Damascus. On that very road, a light from heaven struck him blind, and the voice of the risen Christ asked why he was persecuting Him. Saint Paul’s conversion turned him into the Church’s most tireless missionary, planting communities across the Roman world and writing the majority of the New Testament epistles.
Both men’s paths converged in Rome and ended there under Nero. Saint Peter, unwilling to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord, asked to be crucified upside down. Saint Paul, as a Roman citizen, was beheaded. The Church keeps their memory together as the twin pillars of the apostolic Church, and in the Coptic tradition their feast also closes the Fast of the Apostles.
Iconography
Saint Peter and Saint Paul are shown paired, as elder statesmen of the early Church rather than young men. Saint Peter holds the keys (from “I will give you the keys of the kingdom”); Saint Paul is shown holding multiple scrolls representing his epistles. The icon emphasizes their unity in mission despite very different starting points.