Apostle Apostle and Evangelist Matthew

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: the name in the stub had been corrupted by a data-entry technical error — only "and Evangelist Matthew" survived, missing the initial word "Apostle"; corrected to the full "Apostle and Evangelist Matthew."

The Apostle Matthew (also called Levi, son of Alphaeus, brother of the Apostle James of Alphaeus) worked as a tax collector (publican) in Capernaum in the service of Rome — an occupation despised by his countrymen as collaboration with the occupier. When Christ, passing his tax booth, said, "Follow Me" (Matthew 9:9), Matthew immediately left his post, followed Him, and held a feast for Christ and the disciples together with fellow tax collectors and sinners, prompting the Pharisees' complaint, to which the Savior replied that He had come to call "not the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Matthew became one of the Twelve Apostles.

After Pentecost, tradition holds he preached for about eight years in Palestine and Judea, where, at the request of the Jerusalem Christian community, he wrote his Gospel in Hebrew (Aramaic), recounting Christ's earthly life with special emphasis on the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy — traditionally placed first among the four canonical Gospels. He then continued preaching in more distant lands — sources name Syria, Media, Persia, Parthia, and Lydia — before settling in Ethiopia, where he founded churches, appointed bishops, and converted many, reportedly including the family of the local ruler.

The circumstances of his death vary most across tradition. The most widespread account holds that the pagan ruler of Ethiopia, Fulvian, enraged by his family's conversion to Christ, had Matthew nailed to the ground and burned at the stake; when the flames miraculously did not touch him but instead consumed nearby pagan idols, various strands of tradition disagree on whether this caused his death or was followed by execution by the sword. A smaller number of sources describe a peaceful death after his missionary labors. Orthodox veneration follows the tradition of martyrdom in Ethiopia.

His feast is kept on November 16/29 (main), and also June 30/July 13 in the Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles.