The Feast of Saint Paul: Solemnity of Peter and Paul

Each year on 29 June, Christians across the world pause to honour two men whose lives shaped the Church more than almost any others after Christ himself: Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Though many speak informally of the "Feast of Saint Paul", the day is properly the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul — a single celebration that binds the two apostles together, as the tradition of the Church has done since the earliest centuries. For the city of Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, this day carries a particular resonance.

One day, two apostles

From ancient times the Church has remembered Peter and Paul together on the same date. The two are not rivals but complements: Peter, the fisherman of Galilee whom Jesus named the rock; Paul, the learned Pharisee of Tarsus who once persecuted the faith and was then seized by grace on the road to Damascus. Christian art has long depicted them side by side, sometimes embracing — Peter holding the keys, Paul holding the sword and the scroll.

Why join them? Because between them they embody the fullness of the apostolic mission. Peter is remembered above all as the apostle to the Jewish people and the first among the Twelve; Paul as the tireless apostle to the Gentiles, carrying the Gospel across Asia Minor, Greece and on to Rome. Tradition holds that both gave their lives as martyrs in Rome under the emperor Nero. Uniting their memory on one day expresses a deep truth: the Church is built not on a single figure but on the shared witness of many, drawn from very different beginnings into one faith.

The two apostles as pillars of the Church

Scripture itself sets these two men in a kind of dialogue. In the Letter to the Galatians (Galatians 1–2), Paul recounts how, after his conversion, he went up to Jerusalem and met with Peter (whom he calls Cephas) and the other leaders. There were disagreements — most famously over how Gentile converts should be received — yet the outcome was communion, not division. The early Church learned, through these very apostles, how to hold unity and diversity together.

This is why the liturgy calls them "pillars". They upheld the young Church at a moment when it might easily have fractured. Their different callings — Peter to strengthen the brethren, Paul to break new ground among the nations — became the twin supports on which the Christian mission advanced. To celebrate them together is to celebrate the Church itself: apostolic, universal, and rooted in the witness of those who knew Christ and gave everything for him.

How the day is marked across Christian traditions

The 29 June celebration is honoured widely, and its shape varies gently from one tradition to another.

• In the Catholic Church, the day ranks as a Solemnity, one of the highest grades of celebration, with its own vigil, proper readings and prayers. In Rome it is observed with special dignity, for both apostles are venerated as patrons of the city.
• In the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, the feast crowns a period of preparation known as the Apostles' Fast, which leads up to 29 June. Peter and Paul are honoured together as the "chief" or "coryphaei" (foremost) of the apostles.
• In Anglican, Lutheran and other Western traditions, the day appears in the calendar as a feast of the two apostles, kept with readings recalling Peter's confession of Christ and Paul's labours for the Gospel.

Across these traditions the readings often return to the same scenes: Peter's declaration of faith, his release from prison, and Paul's reflection near the end of his life that he had "finished the race" and "kept the faith". The tone of the day is thanksgiving — gratitude for two lives poured out, and for the Gospel that reached the wider world because of them.

Why Tarsus is a fitting place to remember Paul

If Rome is the city of the apostles' martyrdom, Tarsus is the city of Paul's beginning. He tells us so plainly. In Acts 21:39 he describes himself as "a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city", and in Acts 22:3 he recalls being "born in Tarsus of Cilicia" — though he was brought up and schooled in Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel. Tarsus was no minor town: it was a prosperous centre of trade and learning, and Paul's Roman citizenship, referenced more than once in Acts, opened doors that shaped his mission and even his appeal to Caesar.

It was not in Tarsus but near Damascus that Paul's life turned. Acts 9 recounts the blinding light, the voice of the risen Christ, and the transformation of Saul the persecutor into Paul the apostle. Yet Tarsus remains the ground from which he came — the crossroads of cultures that formed a man able to speak to Jew and Greek, to the synagogue and the marketplace alike. To keep the Solemnity in the very place of his birth is to close a circle: the apostle who travelled so far to preach Christ is honoured where his own journey first began.

You can read more about the city itself in Where Is Tarsus? The Birthplace of Saint Paul, about the man in Who Was the Apostle Paul?, and about why the location matters on our Why Tarsus page.

The meaning of the feast today

For pilgrims and parishes alike, 29 June is more than a commemoration of the past. It is an invitation to receive what Peter and Paul handed on: a living faith, tested by hardship, generous enough to cross every border. Their example speaks to a Church that is still, in every generation, both rooted and sent — anchored in the confession of Christ and called to carry that confession outward.

The two apostles remind us that holiness does not require a flawless beginning. Peter denied his Lord; Paul persecuted the Church. Both were restored, and both became foundations. That is, in the end, the quiet hope of the feast: that grace can turn even our failures into a mission.

Towards Tarsus, June 2027

It is in this spirit that St Paul Global Week will gather in Tarsus and Mersin from 28 to 30 June 2027, centred on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, in the very city where Paul was born. The inaugural gathering will honour his life, mission and legacy through prayer and shared celebration, with the Feast Day programme broadcast live worldwide for those who cannot make the journey in person.

If you would like to understand the shape of those days, you are warmly invited to explore the programme. Church and community leaders who wish to bring a group may learn more through the Hosted Delegation Leaders programme. However you mark 29 June this year, may the witness of Peter and Paul — the two pillars — strengthen and gladden you.