Today, May 14, is the feast of Saint Matthias the Apostle.
As Matthias could bear witness to the Resurrection of Jesus, he was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot.
He preached the Gospel for more than 30 years in Judea, Cappadocia, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Remembered for preaching the need for mortification of the flesh with regard to all its sensual and irregular desires.
In the account of Nicephorus, Matthias was stoned to death at Colchis (present-day Georgia) in the year 80. Another version went further, that the stoning miraculously failed, so Matthias was killed with an axe. The latter narrative explains why the apostle’s iconography sometimes depicts him with an axe.