The holy Apostle Matthias was born in Bethlehem and came from the tribe of Judah. From early childhood he studied the Law of God according to the sacred books under the guidance of the holy Simeon the God-receiver. When the Lord Jesus Christ revealed Himself to the world, the holy Matthias believed in Him as the Messiah, followed Him inseparably, and was chosen among the seventy disciples whom the Lord “sent two by two before His face” (Luke 10:1). After the Ascension of the Savior, the Apostle Matthias was chosen by lot to join the number of the twelve apostles in place of the fallen Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:15–26).
After the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Matthias preached the Gospel in Jerusalem and Judea together with the other apostles (Acts 6:2, 8:14). From Jerusalem, together with the apostles Peter and Andrew, he went to Syrian Antioch, was in the Cappadocian city of Tyana and in Sinope. There the Apostle Matthias was imprisoned, but he was miraculously freed by the Apostle Andrew the First-Called. After this, the Apostle Matthias traveled to Amaseia, a city on the shore of the Pontus. During the third journey of the Apostle Andrew, the holy Matthias was with him in Edessa and Sebaste.
According to Church tradition, he preached in Pontic Ethiopia (present-day Western Georgia), Macedonia, repeatedly facing mortal danger, yet the Lord preserved him alive for the further preaching of the Gospel. Once the pagans forced the apostle to drink poisoned wine. The apostle drank it and not only remained unharmed himself, but also healed other prisoners who had been blinded by this drink. When the holy Matthias came out of prison, the pagans searched for him in vain, for he had become invisible to them. On another occasion, when the pagans in fury rushed to kill the apostle, the earth opened and swallowed them.
The Apostle Matthias returned to Judea and continued without ceasing to enlighten his fellow countrymen with the light of Christ’s teaching. He worked great miracles in the Name of the Lord Jesus and brought very many to faith in Christ. The Jewish high priest Ananus, who hated Christ and who earlier had given the order to throw the Apostle James, the brother of the Lord, down from the height of the temple, commanded that the Apostle Matthias be seized and brought before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. The wicked Ananus delivered a speech in which he blasphemously reviled the Lord. In response, the Apostle Matthias, pointing to the prophecies of the Old Testament, showed that Jesus Christ is the True God, the Messiah promised by God to Israel, the Son of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with God the Father.
After these words, the Apostle Matthias was condemned by the Sanhedrin to death and stoned. When the holy Matthias was already dead, the Jews, seeking to conceal the crime, cut off his head as an enemy of Caesar. (According to some sources, the Apostle Matthias was crucified on a cross. Some indicate that he reposed in Colchis.) The Apostle Matthias received the death for Christ and the martyr’s crown around the year 63.