Apostle of the Seventy Nymphas

IMPORTANT NAME CORRECTION: the card's previous spelling — "Nympha" (feminine form) — contradicted the already-present database field category_gender="m". Investigation confirmed: the Greek accusative "Νύμφαν" in Colossians 4:15 is grammatically ambiguous between the masculine "Νυμφᾶς" (Nymphas) and the feminine "Νύμφα" (Nympha) — the earliest manuscripts had no accents, and the manuscript tradition also disagrees on the possessive pronoun ("his house" vs. "her house"). Modern secular New Testament scholarship largely favors the feminine reading ("Nympha," a house-church leader), but church Tradition — following the Typikon of the Great Church and the Byzantine text — reads it as a masculine name and venerates him as "Apostle of the Seventy Nymphas." Given this, the card's name has been corrected to "Nymphas" for consistency with the gender field.

DATE CORRECTION: the date "November 5" was not confirmed by any source; the most authoritatively attested date (per the Typikon of the Great Church, jointly with Apostle of the Seventy Eubulus) is February 28; honestly noted that this commemoration is absent from the current ROC calendar (per ortox.ru).

Apostle Nymphas is mentioned only in Colossians 4:15 ("Greet the brothers in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church that is in his house"). He is connected with Laodicea in Phrygia (Asia Minor), near Colossae — apparently the head of a house-church there, possibly overseeing the Colossian congregation in Epaphras's absence. By the sound of his name he is thought to be of Greek rather than Jewish origin. He is not included in the traditional Slavic lists of the 70 Apostles — included only in the Greek Menologies (Synaxarion of Nikodemos the Hagiorite), alongside Eubulus. Nothing reliable is known of his later life or death; late sources vaguely state he "died in peace."

His feast is kept on February 28 (see note above).