St. John the Evangelist

On December 27 the Church honors St. John the Evangelist — the "beloved disciple" who leaned on Christ's breast at the Last Supper, the author of the Gospel of John, the three Johannine Epistles, and, by ancient tradition, the Book of Revelation. He is one of the Twelve, the brother of James the Greater, and one of the three who witnessed the Transfiguration, the raising of Jairus's daughter, and the agony in the garden. He is the only one of the Twelve believed to have died a natural death, and the Church has always kept his feast in the Christmas Octave — the apostle who wrote "the Word was made flesh" celebrated in the season of the Incarnation.

Tradition holds that John lived at Ephesus in his later years — and that it was there that he composed the Gospel and from there was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he wrote Revelation. The Basilica of St. John at Ephesus, built by Justinian in the 6th century over his traditional tomb, is one of the great pilgrimage sites of Asia Minor; the ruins of the great basilica still stand on the hill above the ancient city. The House of the Virgin Mary on the hill above, where the same tradition holds that John brought Mary after Christ's command from the Cross, is one of the most visited Marian shrines in Turkey. In Rome, the Lateran Basilica — the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome — is jointly dedicated to John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, and the church of San Giovanni in Oleo marks the tradition of his attempted martyrdom in boiling oil at the Latin Gate.