Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian.

John the Apostle was born into a family of Jewish fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. He was the son of Zebedee and the younger brother of James the Great. According to church tradition, their mother was Salome. Jesus Christ our Savior was the uncle of Saint John the Theologian, since He was the half-brother of John's mother Salome. John and his brother James were helping their father Zebedee with the fishing when the Savior called them to follow Him and become fishers of men. They immediately left everything to follow His heavenly teaching.

John the Apostle is traditionally believed to be one of two disciples (the other being Andrew) recounted in John 1:35–39, who upon hearing the Baptist point out Jesus as the "Lamb of God", followed Jesus and spent the day with him, thus becoming the first two disciples called by Jesus. On this basis some traditions believe that John was first a disciple of John the Baptist, even though he is not named in this episode.

He saw Christ after His Resurrection and was commissioned with the other disciples to preach the Gospel throughout the world when the Lord breathed on them as an earnest of the gift of the Holy Spirit. He was present also at the Lord's Ascension into heaven and received the Holy Spirit under the appearance of tongues of fire with the other disciples on the day of Pentecost.

When the time came to part from one another to preach in all the regions of the world, the Apostles drew lots to tell where each should go. It fell to John to preach the Gospel in Asia Minor which was full of idolatry and entirely given over to paganism. They made their way to Ephesus, a place where the people had great devotion to the goddess Diana and would celebrate festivals in her honor. At one of these, John climbed the hill where stood the great statue of the goddess in order to address the crowd. The pagans were enraged to see him there and tried to stone him, but by the grace of God all the stones missed their mark and struck the statue, which was reduced to rubble.

They took the Apostle John for trial at Rome. Saint John was sentenced to death for his confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Lord preserved His chosen one. The apostle drank a cup of deadly poison, but he remained alive. Later, he emerged unharmed from a cauldron of boiling oil into which he had been thrown on orders from the torturer. Domitian was so exasperated by this, that he exiled John to the desert island of Patmos.

After Domitian's death, the Apostle John left his exile in Patmos to return to Ephesus. He was translated to the Lord, while preaching the word of God at Ephesus, in deep old age during the days of Emperor Trajan (98-117 A.D.).

When Saint John was more than one hundred years old, he told seven of his disciples to take spades and follow him to a certain place outside the city of Ephesus, and then he told everyone to sit down while he went off to pray by himself for a while. When he returned, he told his disciples to dig a grave as long as he was tall, in the form of a cross. After the Apostle dismissed them, they buried him and wept bitterly. Later, they returned and opened the grave, but the Saint's body was not there.

Every year, on May 8, a red dust appears on his grave, which heals the sick, through the prayers of the Holy Apostle John. People call this dust "manna from the earth." Saint Augustine knew about this dust, and Saint Gregory of Tours also wrote about it.

The Apostle John was especially loved by the Savior for his sacrificial love and his virginal purity. After his calling, the Apostle John did not part from the Lord, and he was one of the three apostles who were particularly close to Him. Saint John the Theologian was present when the Lord restored the daughter of Jairus to life, and he was a witness to the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.

The Basilica of Saint John the Theologian was constructed by Justinian the Great in the 6th century, at a site where John the Apostle was said to have been buried. Symeon Metaphrastes in the tenth century writes of the festival on May 8th being of such great magnitude that it seemed there were more people in attendance to take part in the miracle and receive a portion of its distribution than there were stars in the sky.

He called for all Christians to love the Lord and one another, and by this to fulfill the commands of Christ. The apostle's emphasis on love as the foundation of Christian life, expressed particularly in his epistles and Gospel, remains central to Orthodox theology and piety to this day. His intercessions are sought especially for those seeking theological wisdom and deeper understanding of God's nature.

Saint John the Theologian was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church for his profound spiritual wisdom and intimate closeness to the Lord. Also known as Saint John the Beloved and, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Saint John the Theologian, he was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. He was the son of Salome the myrrh-bearer and Zebedee, a fisherman, and his brother was St. James, another apostle.

Generally listed as the youngest apostle, he was the son of Zebedee and Salome. John, along with his brother James and Peter, formed an informal triumvirate among the Twelve Apostles in the Gospels. Jesus allowed them to be the only apostles present at three particular occasions during his public ministry, the Raising of Jairus' daughter, Transfiguration of Jesus and Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. In his own Gospel account, he refers to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" rather than use his name. He was the youngest of the twelve apostles, and especially close to the Lord.

John the Apostle is traditionally held to be the author of the Gospel of John, and many Christian denominations believe that he authored several other books of the New Testament (the three Johannine epistles and the Book of Revelation, together with the Gospel of John, are called the Johannine works). In the year 95, the Apostle John wrote his Gospel at Ephesus. Thus in about the year 67 the Book of Revelation was written, known also as the "Apocalypse," of the holy Apostle John the Theologian.

He remained the last of them all in Jerusalem, in the company of the Virgin Mary, whom he served until the time of her Dormition. John lived in Ephesus, returned there after his banishment on the island of Patmos, died there, and was buried there. The appellation "Theologian" is bestowed by Holy Church only to Saint John among the immediate disciples and Apostles of Christ, as being the seer of the mysterious Judgments of God.