From the Bible, we know of Apostle Phillip as a man with profound knowledge of Scripture, who was among the first to recognize the Messiah and follow Him in answer to His call. He converted to Christ Apostle Bartholomew. He was the one whom Christ asked where to buy the bread to feed five thousand people, and at the Last Supper, he asked the Lord how they could see the Father.
He stayed with Christ and the other apostles from Christ’s resurrection to His Ascension and then went to preach His word to Galilee. By the grace of the Lord, he performed multiple miracles along the way, bringing many people to the faith in Christ. Brought before the Jewish chief priests, he defended Jesus’s name; when the priests and his men insulted Christ and attempted to strike Phillip, their hands withered, and blindness struck them. Yet the prophet projected the mercy of the Lord. He prayed for the men, and their sight returned and their hands were healed. Many believed in Christ.
Preaching God, he suffered multiple sorrows. He has been pelted with rocks, held in captivity and driven out of villages. In one of the cities where the Pagans were worshipping a big snake for fear of snake bites, he destroyed the snake by his prayer and healed many people bitten by snakes. Most renounced Pagan worship and turned to Christ, including the wife of the city's Prefect.
The Pagan Magi urged the Prefect to crucify the apostle together with his sister and his companion Bartholomew. The Prefect listened, ordering Bartholomew to be crucified upside down. When they had put them on the crosses, an earthquake broke out. Hanging on the cross, Phillip prayed to the Lord for His mercy on the people, and the quake stopped. All the people, except the Prefect and Magi, survived. They believed in Christ and demanded that the execution be stopped. All were taken off the crosses, but Phillip was already dead.
Phillip’s sister Mariamne laid his body to rest and went with Bartholomew to preach the Lord in Armenia, where Bartholomew died a martyr’s death on the cross.
