St. John the Theologian (the Evangelist)

Son of Zebedee, brother of James, a fisherman of Galilee and the disciple whom Jesus loved, who leaned on His breast at the Supper, stood at the cross when the others had gone, and was given the Theotokos to take into his home. He wrote the fourth Gospel, which opens with the Word who was with God and was God and became flesh, and three letters whose whole argument is that God is love; the Church also receives the Revelation under his name. He was exiled to Patmos and died in great old age at Ephesus, where by the account St Jerome gives he had himself carried into the church and said only: little children, love one another. He is the first of the three the Church calls Theologian. Feast: September 26.