43,000 Iranians murdered for challenging Khamenei in recent weeks. He will need to meet God face to face.
Sunday, March 01, 2026
Matthias.
Who was Matthias and why is he called the thirteenth apostle?
(Photo: Unsplash/Brett Jordan)24 February is St Matthias’s Day. Matthias is known as “the 13th apostle”, but who was he and what do we know about him? This is the story …
The name Matthias
Matthias is a name derived from the Greek Ματθαίος and has a similar origin to Matthew, which means “gift of God”. The name has never been particularly popular in English-speaking countries, but is fairly common in German-speaking lands, where it is often shortened to Matze. Forms of the name are also popular in Iceland, Slovenia, and Hungary.
Matthias
Matthias - not to be confused with the Apostle Matthew - first appears unnamed as one of the first disciples of Jesus, and he remained loyal to him throughout his ministry. He is likely one of the seventy, or seventy-two (depending on which manuscript you use) disciples of Jesus (Luke 10:1) who were sent out in pairs. It was from among this broader group of disciples that the original twelve apostles were selected (Luke 6:13). Matthias was in the larger group of disciples.
Replacing Judas
The background to the story of Matthias follows events after Judas Iscariot was remorseful about betraying Jesus and then hung himself (Matthew 27:1–5). After the Ascension, the remaining 120 followers of Jesus gathered together in Jerusalem (Acts 1:12–15). Peter explained that the place of Judas should be filled to maintain the number of twelve apostles. Simon Peter quoted Psalm 109:8 as “Let another take his office” (NKJV) or “Let someone else take his position” (NLT) (Acts 1:20). The apostles set the ideal requirement that the replacement must be someone who had been with them from the time of John’s baptism to the time of the Ascension, and who was a witness of his resurrection (Acts 1:21–22). Two men who fitted the criteria were proposed for election.
The options
The first option was Joseph called Barsabbas, also known as Justus, and the other was Matthias. The community prayed for guidance (Acts 1:24), and then cast lots. The lot fell upon Matthias, and he was ordained as an apostle (Acts 1:26). As a result, he is often known as “the thirteenth apostle”.
What we do not know
There is a lot we do not know about this story. We presume that both Joseph Justus and Matthias were happy to be nominated. We do not know if they were the only two possible candidates, or if there were other potential candidates besides them who perhaps did not want to be considered for the role. It is not known what Matthias thought about spending all of that time as a disciple in the background and then being thrust into responsibility as an apostle. Nor is it known what Joseph Justus thought about not being selected. It is not known when the Early Church changed the criteria for being an apostle, because later other people are called apostles, such as James (Galatians 1:19), Barnabas (Acts 14:14), and Paul (1 Corinthians 1:1), and it is not known for how long the Church felt they had to keep the number to twelve.
Traditions
Matthias is not mentioned again by name in the New Testament. However, he is there but unnamed among the group known as “the Apostles” or “The Twelve” (Acts 6:2; 1 Corinthians 15:5), who remained in Jerusalem. As often happens, the gap in the biblical record is filled by tradition. The generally accepted tradition is recorded by Nicephorus, the Greek historian. This records that Matthias evangelised in Judea, and then later, when the apostles dispersed, Matthias went with Andrew to the region of Colchis at the eastern end of the Black Sea, which is now in western Georgia. The tradition has it that he was martyred there by stoning.
Burial Place
Local tradition in Georgia states that Matthias was stoned to death and buried at the ruins of the Roman fortress of Gonio (Apsaros) in Adjara. Visitors are shown a marker there which claims to indicate the location. Another tradition says that his relics were later brought to Europe, perhaps by St Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine. The remains were then taken to the Abbey of Santa Giustina in Padua, near Venice in Italy.
Yet another tradition says that the relics, or some of the relics, were taken from Padua to the Benedictine Abbey at Trier (sometimes called Trèves) in Germany, which is near the border with Luxembourg. Here his relics were, perhaps suspiciously, rediscovered in 1127, and then the abbey was dedicated to him. The abbey church of St Matthias at Trier became a major pilgrimage site, and as a result, Matthias became a popular name in Germany.
Prayers to St Matthias
Matthias was never formally canonised, but he is generally regarded as a saint and martyr, and formally called “St Matthias, Apostle and Martyr”. In pre-Reformation times, when Christians would pray to saints, some people prayed to St Matthias for perseverance when they felt overlooked, because Matthias had followed Jesus from the beginning, yet remained in the background until his belated calling to apostleship. The prayer to select him — “Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen” (Acts 1:24) — made him a natural patron saint for those seeking God’s will in tough decisions, especially those considering ordained ministry or religious orders. He was also honoured as a martyr, as one who “finished the race” (2 Timothy 4:7) in costly faithfulness.
Churches dedicated to St Matthias
The most famous church dedicated to St Matthias is the Abbey Church in Trier in Germany, because it claims to have his relics. However, St Matthias has never been a popular saint to dedicate churches to, and there are only sixteen churches in the Church of England dedicated to him. Even the famous “Matthias Church” in Budapest, with its coloured patterned roof tiles, is not actually dedicated to him, but is named after the fifteenth-century King Mátyás (Matthias) of Hungary.
St Matthias’s Day
In the Western Church, the Feast of Matthias was historically kept on 24 February. There is no obvious reason for this date, but there is a theory. In the original Julian calendar, during a leap year they did not simply tack on an extra day at the end of February, as we do now; instead, the practice was to double 24 February, which was the “sixth day before the Calends of March” (ante diem sextum Kalendas Martias), which created a “bissextus” or double sixth. In ancient times, St Matthias was considered lucky because he was the apostle who was chosen by lot to replace Judas Iscariot, and so he was lucky that in a leap year he got two days.
In 1969, under the modern Roman Catholic calendar reforms agreed at Vatican II, the feast of St Matthias was moved to 14 May, closer to the period between Ascension and Pentecost in the calendar, to better fit the sequence of the story in the lectionary. However, in the Church of England and some other liturgical traditions, the historic St Matthias’s Day is still marked on 24 February.
Lectionary readings
The lectionary readings for St Matthias’s Day are Matthew 11:25–30, because it illuminates Matthias’ unexpected call from obscurity to apostleship, as one who took the yoke of apostleship later; and Acts 1:15–26, which tells of his election as an apostle.
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Collect
The Anglican collect prayer for St Matthias’s Day is: “O Almighty God, who into the place of the traitor Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the twelve Apostles: Grant that thy Church, being alway preserved from false Apostles, may be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” CT.
Appalling!
Rachel Reeves will not increase defence spending in her Spring Statement, despite growing pressure from military chiefs.
Leading figures in the Armed Forces have identified a £28bn gap between defence spending needs in the coming years and funding agreed by the Treasury.
Former military chiefs, including retired heads of the Army and the Navy, have argued for an urgent rise in defence spending.
However, The Telegraph understands that the Chancellor will not use her statement to the Commons on Tuesday, updating on the public finances, to announce an increase.
Ms Reeves is planning a low-key Spring Statement, with no major announcements on spending policy or taxation being worked up after a tumultuous autumn Budget.
The Chancellor’s theme for the speech will be to “stick to the plan”, pointing to falling inflation, interest rates and energy costs to argue that the conditions for growth are emerging, according to a Treasury insider. DT.
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State of The Union.
Hamas Propaganda.
The crumbling wall of Hamas propaganda.
Yet nothing can be allowed to challenge the narrative of heartless Israelis and wretched Palestinians
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Stone by stone, the wall of lies constructed in the West to defame, delegitimise and destroy Israel is crumbling away.
Protests by Israel’s defenders that these lies constitute an agenda of unique malevolence have all been batted away as partisan Zionist lobbying.
Not only are the perpetrators of this anti-Israel onslaught impervious to facts, truth and evidence. They also assume a position of moral superiority, on the preposterous assumption that singling out for destruction the world’s only Jewish state is an act of conscience.
Now, however, this noxious narrative is falling apart from within.
During the war following the Hamas-led attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, Gaza’s Nasser Hospital was hit several times in bombing raids by the Israel Defence Forces. The IDF had identified numerous terrorist targets either there or in the immediate vicinity.
Despite insisting that it never targeted health facilities but only the terrorist infrastructure embedded in and around them, Israel was repeatedly accused of deliberately endangering health-care staff and patients.
In February 2024, Israeli special forces detained hundreds of terror operatives at Nasser, including some who were said to be disguised as medical staff. The IDF reported finding medication packages marked with the names of Israeli hostages abducted on October 7; Israeli cars stolen during that invasion; and large quantities of weapons, including rifles, mortars and grenades, within the hospital grounds.
The NGO Doctors Without Borders — known by its acronym MSF because of its French name Médecins Sans Frontières — played a prominent role in Nasser’s medical care, and fed Western media outlets with repeated accusations that the IDF was causing carnage in a place of healing.
Yet earlier this month, MSF quietly revealed that in January it had suspended all non-critical operations at Nasser after staff reported that armed men, some of them masked, had been seen in different parts of the hospital. It said that for some months, its medical teams had witnessed suspected movements of weapons, as well as intimidation and even arbitrary arrests of patients by armed terrorists.
This was the first time that MSF had acknowledged any terrorist activity in Gaza’s hospitals, instantly lending retrospective credence to Israel’s claims that they were all terrorist hubs. The use of health facilities for military purposes turns them into legitimate military targets and is itself a war crime.
MSF has now professed shock at the use of Nasser hospital by terrorists, piously emphasising the “incompatibility of such violations with MSF’s medical mission”.
Yet it seems to have a history of presiding over such incompatible violations.
When Fadi al Wadiya, a member of its health-care team, was killed in an IDF airstrike in 2024, MSF furiously proclaimed that he was “just a physiotherapist”. When Israel presented it with evidence of al Wadiya’s terrorist activities, MSF doubled down on its denials.
Yet this week, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) included al Wadiya in a list of its high-ranking commanders who were killed during the Gaza war. It turns out that he was the deputy head of PIJ’s military manufacturing unit.
As the IDF reported, he had developed and advanced PIJ’s rocket array for 15 years, and played a central role in the organisation’s knowledge of electronics and chemistry. Hardly, therefore, “just a physiotherapist”.
Others on the PIJ list turned out to have similar dual roles. Alaa Hassan Abdullah Asbihi was an assistant commander of the military manufacturing unit while doubling as a nurse at Gaza’s European hospital.
“Journalists” on the list included Mahdi Hassan Mohammed al Mamlouk, deputy head of PIJ’s central communications unit, and Arafat Abdullah Mahmoud Abu Zayed, deputy head of PIJ’s central intelligence unit, who also wrote political analysis for the SHMS news agency and Palestine Today.
Yet repeated claims that Israel was killing innocent journalists and health-care workers have helped fuel murderous incitement against Jews around the world.
Other humanitarian NGOs have also been instrumental in fomenting this hysteria. One of these is Oxfam, but now the whistle has been blown on that organisation from the inside.
The former CEO of Oxfam GB, Dr. Halima Begum, has accused the charity of a “toxic antisemitic culture” over its “disproportionate” focus on Gaza. Begum, who was voted out of Oxfam in December due to what she claimed was a “witch hunt,” said on TV earlier this month that there was pressure within the charity to describe Israel’s war in Gaza as “genocide”.
That “genocide” lie has now been revealed as a travesty by Hamas itself. In its latest revision of the number of deaths in Gaza during the war, it says that 68,800 died. As before, it provides no acknowledgement of the number of these casualties who were terrorist combatants, nor the number who were killed by misfired rockets from Gaza or execution by Hamas (of which there have been many), nor indeed the number of natural deaths.
Most of the dead were men aged 18 to 59. According to researcher Gabriel Epstein, who broke the numbers down for Haaretz, the Hamas statistics show a much higher share of adult men and older teenage boys relative to their share of the population and a much lower share of women and children.
This totally refutes the mantra that those killed by Israel were “overwhelmingly” women and children. And, of course, it exposes the claim of genocide as utterly ludicrous.
Among those who have defamed Israel with these lies for the past 28 months, there is no admission of the terrible wrong they have done even as their narrative collapses around them. Far from acknowledging that an unknown number of its staff have terrorist links, MSF is refusing to share a list of its Palestinian and international staff with Israeli authorities as part of the registration process to work in Gaza and the “West Bank”.
What’s more, its admission about terrorists at Nasser hospital was buried in a rarely referenced FAQ page on the MSF website, where it was spotted by the eagle-eyed analyst Salo Aizenberg.
There appears to be nothing about this MSF report, the PIJ “dual identity” revelations or the revised Hamas statistical breakdown on the websites of Israel’s chief media demonisers, the BBC and The New York Times.
As for Oxfam, the BBC website reports the industrial tribunal case Begum has brought against the charity by detailing claims against her of bullying and other leadership issues, while failing to mention her explosive charge that Oxfam has a “toxic antisemitic culture”.
Nor is this the first time that MSF’s halo has been tarnished from within. In December 2023, Alain Destexhe, MSF’s former head, published a 47-page report based on tweets and posts by MSF staff on X and on Facebook.
This revealed that a significant proportion of MSF staff in Gaza supported Hamas, including its onslaught on October 7. They never denounced on X the crimes committed by Hamas on that day, the taking of hostages, or the use of hospitals as barracks or human shields.
While MSF spared Hamas, said the report, the NGO accused Israel of “all the crimes,” using terms such as “massacres,” “annihilation,” and “accepted and organised sacrifice”.
“Is it possible,” it asked, “that MSF and its employees knew nothing and saw nothing of the violations of humanitarian law in the hospital by Hamas?”
It’s a good question, which could usefully be repeated about others. Is it possible that the Western media and the rest of the liberal establishment that demonise and defame Israel know nothing and see nothing of the violations of truth and evidence by Hamas?
The answer, incredible as it seems, is yes — and no. Those who see it shut their eyes to it. Others don’t allow themselves to see it at all.
Nothing, including whistleblowing or revised information from within, can be allowed to challenge the Western liberal narrative of heartless Israeli colonisers and wretched displaced Palestinians.
Which is why the entire media, humanitarian and human-rights complex, which has poisoned the mind of the West with this exterminatory propaganda, is itself an accomplice to an all-too-real genocidal programme.
I Believe This To Be The Worst Loss of Life in Maritime History.
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Proverbs 14.
6) The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none,
but knowledge comes easily to the discerning.
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