Ss. Peter & Paul
Peter and Paul are joined in a single feast because the Church of Rome was built upon the blood of both: the Rock on whom Christ founded his Church, and the Apostle who carried the Gospel to the nations. From the earliest centuries Rome honoured them together on June 29 as her twin founders, their basilicas — St Peter’s on the Vatican hill and St Paul’s Outside the Walls — marking the places of their burial. Together they signify the whole apostolic mission: Peter the shepherd of the flock, Paul the herald to the nations, one feast for the unity and universality of the Church they served unto death.
Saints Peter and Paul, the twin pillars of the apostolic Church, are honoured together on June 29 — the day tradition assigns to their martyrdom in Rome under Nero. Peter, the fisherman whom Christ named the Rock and made the first Pope, and Paul, the persecutor converted on the road to Damascus to become the Apostle to the Gentiles, laboured and died in the same city; the Church that rose on their witness keeps their memory as one feast. Peter was crucified, by tradition head-downward; Paul, a Roman citizen, was beheaded.
