Better known as Saint Paul the Apostle, this former persecutor of Christians became the Church’s most consequential missionary and author of the New Testament epistles.

Saint Paul of Rome is Saint Paul the Apostle, also called Paul of Tarsus or Saul, a Jewish Pharisee who once persecuted the Church before his conversion on the road to Damascus turned him into Christianity’s greatest missionary. Across three long journeys he planted churches throughout Asia Minor and Greece, and his letters became foundational texts of the New Testament. Tradition holds he was beheaded in Rome under Nero around the year 67, at roughly sixty-two years of age.

Quick Facts

• Born: c. 5 AD, Tarsus (in present-day Turkiye)
• Died: c. 67 AD, Rome, Italy
• Feast Day: June 29 (with Saint Peter); Conversion of Saint Paul, January 25
• Patron of: missionaries, evangelists, writers, and publishers
• Venerated as: Apostle and martyr

Who Was Saint Paul of Rome?

Saint Paul of Rome is more widely known simply as Saint Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. Born Saul in the Cilician city of Tarsus and trained as a strict Pharisee, he actively persecuted the early Church until a dramatic encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus reversed the entire direction of his life. From that point he became one of Christianity’s most tireless missionaries, traveling across the eastern Mediterranean to found and correspond with churches, and his epistles now make up a substantial portion of the New Testament.

Historical Setting

Paul’s ministry unfolded across the middle decades of the first century, a period when the young Christian movement was spreading rapidly beyond Jerusalem into the wider Greco-Roman world. His missionary journeys carried the Gospel into Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and eventually to Rome itself, and his letters to the communities he founded, at Corinth, Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Rome among others, shaped Christian theology from its earliest generation onward. Roman authority under Nero grew hostile to Christians in the 60s, and it was in this climate that Paul’s life ended.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Paul of Rome

Few figures in Christian history match Paul’s influence: his letters articulate core doctrines of grace, faith, and the universal reach of the Gospel to Jew and Gentile alike, and his missionary journeys established the pattern by which Christianity became a faith for the whole Roman world rather than a sect confined to Judea. Tradition holds that he was beheaded on the Ostian Way outside Rome under Nero, a Roman citizen’s privilege sparing him the crucifixion given to Peter, and the two apostles have been honored together as co-founders of the Roman church ever since.

Canonization and Feast Day

Paul has been venerated as an apostle and martyr from the earliest generations of the Church, long before any formal process of canonization existed; his sainthood rests on apostolic recognition itself, the oldest and most authoritative form of the Church’s veneration. His principal feast, shared with Saint Peter, falls on June 29, with a separate feast for his Conversion kept on January 25.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Paul’s own writings, more than almost any other source in the New Testament, show a man radically transformed by grace after actively working against the Church he later gave his life for. His example remains one of the most powerful in Christian tradition for anyone who doubts that a past marked by real opposition to faith can be entirely overturned by conversion, and that such a conversion can bear extraordinary fruit for the whole Church.

A Prayer to Saint Paul of Rome

Saint Paul, once a persecutor turned into the Church’s greatest missionary, obtain for us the grace of true conversion whenever our own hearts resist the truth. Give us your courage to proclaim the Gospel and your endurance to carry it through every hardship, even to the end. Amen.

Sources

• The Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles, New Testament
• Butler’s Lives of the Saints, entry on Saint Paul the Apostle
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, entry on Saint Paul