St. Mark the Apostle

+ John is the so-called Mark, who is frequently quoted in the Book of Acts and Letters. The name of St. Mark was born in Kairouan, one of the five western cities of Libya, in a town called Abriatoles, of Jewish parents from the tribe of Levi, the name of his father Aristopoulos, and his mother Mary was a woman The first Christian Christians in Jerusalem learn Greek, Latin and Hebrew and have mastered it.

+ As some of the tribes that were afflicted with their property attacked, they left Kairouan to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem. He grew up in a religious family that was one of the oldest families believing in Christianity and serving her.

His relationship with Christ:

+ He and his mother Mary enjoyed Christ. They were women who served the Lord with their money, as many of the family members had to do with Christ. Mark was related to the apostles of Peter, as his father was the cousin of St. Peter the Apostle or her cousin. A relative of Barnabas the Apostle is the son of his sister (Ko 4:10), or his cousin, and also of Thomas.

+ His mother opened her house to eat the Passover with his disciples in the attic, and became one of the famous houses in the history of early Christianity. The Lord of Glory washed the feet of the disciples and gave them the sacrament of the Eucharist. It became the first Christian church in the world to be inaugurated by the Lord Himself through Him and His practice of the Eucharist. In the same attic, the disciples gathered after the resurrection, in which the Holy Spirit was dissolved over the disciples (Acts 2: 1-4). Thus, the house of Mark was the first Christian church in the world where Christians met in the time of the Apostles (Acts 12:12).

+ But he saw and lived with Jesus Christ, and sat with him, but that he was among the seventy apostles, so the Church called him, “the beholder of God.”

St. Mark was one of the seventy apostles chosen by the Lord to serve, and the sign of Origen and St. Epiphanius testified to this tradition, and mentions that St. Mark was present with the Lord at the wedding of Cana of Galilee, the young man who was carrying the jar when the disciples met him, 13-14; Luke 22:11). He is also the young man who was said to have followed the Savior and was wearing a garb on his nakedness, so they held him, and he left the Azar and fled from them naked (Mk 14: 51-52). This story is mentioned only in the Gospel of Mark which indicates that it occurred with him.

His preaching:

+ The Apostle began his service with our teacher Peter the Apostle in Jerusalem and in Judaism. The book of the Acts of the Apostles records that he departed with the apostles Paul and Barnabas in the first missionary journey and cherished with them in Antioch, Cyprus and then in Asia Minor. But he was thought to have contracted a disease in Berge, Maviliya, and had to return to Jerusalem and not complete the journey. He then returned and collaborated with Paul in establishing some of the churches of Europe, especially the Church of Rome.

But when the apostle Paul began his second apostolic mission, the prophet Barnabas insisted on taking Mark, but Paul the Apostle refused, until they separated. Paul and Paul went with him, but Barnabas took Mark and Cruz in Cyprus (Acts 13: 4-5). He went to Cyprus A second time after the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:39). St. Mark disappeared in the Book of Acts when he traveled to Egypt and founded the Church of Alexandria after he first went to the birthplace of the Five Cities in Libya. From there he went to the oases and Upper Egypt and entered Alexandria in 61 AD. From its eastern side.

+ Alexandria entered Alexandria, probably in the year 60 AD. From the west side of the five cities. History tells us the story of the acceptance of Anianus the Christian faith as the first Egyptian in Alexandria to accept Christianity … The shoes of St. Mark faded from the multitude of walking, and when he went to the shoemaker Anianus to fix it he entered the grooves in his hand and cried out: “O God the one,” and St. Mark spoke to him in the name of Jesus Christ As for the one God, he and his family believed … As faith spread rapidly in Alexandria, Anianus was appointed Bishop, with three priests and seven deacons. The Passion of the Pagan People St. Mark had to leave Alexandria to go to the five western cities of Rome and to Rome, where he had little effort in the evangelization of the Apostle Paul, but soon returned to Egypt to follow the great work he had begun.

+ Returned to Alexandria in 65 m. To find the Christian faith flourished he decided to visit the five cities, and returned again to Alexandria to witness there in the region of Bukala. It happened when the Apostle celebrated the sacrificial offering on Easter day – and that day coincided with the pagan Feast of Serapis – that the pagans attacked the church that the believers had created at the sea, in the place known as the Bokalaya, the House of the Cow. They arrested Mark and began to walk him on the streets of the city shouting: “Drag the dragon in the house of the cow.” And in the evening they put him in a dark prison, and in the middle of that night appeared to him the Lord Jesus Christ and his powers and promised him the crown of jihad. On the following day, the Gentiles returned the ball until his soul was filled with the hand of the Lord at the end of the month of Baramouda in 68 AD. In the abuse of the body of the saint, the Gentiles set fire to the fire and set it on purpose to burn it, but heavy rains fell and extinguished the fire, and then took the believers body very honored and buried.

+ Some Venetian merchants stole this body in 827 CE. And built a church in their city, the head is still in Alexandria and built the Church of St. Mark. Lebanon believes that St. Cyrus was in it, and he was also revered by Colossi (4:10), who was taken by the Venetian as a patron and by Aquila of Venice. (4: 2). In the letter to Colossi, he mentions him among the few who worked with him in the kingdom of God while he was captive to his first family in Rome. In his second family, as he was preparing to remove his house, he wrote to Timothy asking him to send Mark because he was good for him (2 Timothy 4:11).

His Gospel:

+ St. Mark is the author of the Gospel, whose name is the Gospel of Mark. He is the author of the liturgy, now known as the Liturgy of St. Cyril, the pillar of the twenty-fourth Alexandrian patriarch, because he was the first without writing and adding some prayers.

Establishment of theological school:

+ St. Mark the Apostle credited with establishing the Theological Seminary in Alexandria, a school that was known throughout the Christian world to the east and west, and delivered great services to Christianity thanks to its scientists and philosophers who came out.

St. Mark and the Lion:

+ St. Mark is symbolized by the lion, so the people of Venice, when they sniff at him, made the lion a symbol of them, and set up a winged lion in the square of St. Mark in their city. Some explain this code as follows:

First, St. Mark was said to have attracted his father Aristobulus to the Christian faith as they walked together on the way to Jordan, where he was surprised by a lion and a lion. The father asked his son to flee as he advanced, and he was filled with the beast, but the son reassured the father and prayed to Jesus. By Christ.

Second: St. Mark began his Gospel by saying: “A loud voice in the wilderness” … as if the voice of a manual lion in the wilderness as the king of animals sets the stage for the coming of the true king, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is when the Bible proclaims the authority of Christ, so it is not possible to symbolize it as a lion, since it is said of the Lord that he is “the Lion who is out of the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5: 5).

Thirdly, St. Ambrose sees that St. Mark began his Gospel by proclaiming the authority of the deity of Christ the Servant, “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” (1: 1).