The Deaths of the Apostles and other saints...

The next time you think your Christian walk is difficult, just come back and read this...

Peter, was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross, according to Church tradition, because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die the same way that Jesus Christ had died.

Andrew, according to legend he travelled to Greece and preached in the province of Achaia.  There he became a martyr and was crucified on an X-shaped cross.

James the Greater, a son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry. As a strong leader of the Church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman soldier who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.

John was boiled in a huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos where he wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation. The Apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as a bishop in modern Turkey. He died an old man, the only Apostle to die peacefully.

Philip, according to tradition he went to preach in Phrygia and died at Hierapolis, nailed to a cross, by the hands of a strange Phrygian cult .

Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael, was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed about our Lord in present day Turkey. He was whipped to death for his preaching in Armenia.

Thomas was speared and died on one of his missionary trips to establish the Church in India.

Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.

James Alpheus the Just, the leader of the Church in Jerusalem and brother of Jesus, was thrown down more than a hundred feet from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller's club. This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the Temptation.

Jude, another brother of Jesus, was killed with arrows after refusing to deny his faith in Christ.

Simon, called the Cananean or the Zealot; according to legend, preached in various places in the Middle East and suffered martyrdom by being sawed in two. In art, he is depicted with a saw, the instrument of his death, or a book, symbolic of his zeal for the Law.

Paul was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67. Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment which allowed him to write his many epistles to the Churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.

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Matthias, the Apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot, was stoned and beheaded.

Barnabas, one of the group of seventy disciples, was stoned to death at Salonica.

Mark died in Alexandria, Egypt, dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead.

Luke, a physician, was not an apostle; was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.