St. Matthias the Apostle
He took the traitor’s place. The office was open because Judas had betrayed Jesus and was gone, and Matthias let himself be put forward for it, was chosen by lot, and was counted among the apostles from that day. What he did afterward nobody wrote down.
Canonized
No year of birth and no year of death appears in any document held here, and no grave that anyone will vouch for. Outside the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles he is not in the New Testament at all, and the Catholic Encyclopedia calls everything about his later life “vague and contradictory”. THE FEAST HAS MOVED. The encyclopedia, written in 1911, records the Latin Church keeping him on 24 February and the Greek Church on 9 August; the calendar the Church uses now keeps him on 14 May. AND IN 2026 HIS DAY IS NOT THE SAME EVERYWHERE IN THE UNITED STATES. The Ascension falls on Thursday 14 May that year. In the provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha and Philadelphia the Ascension is kept that day and his feast gives way to it; in every other province the Ascension moves to Sunday 17 May and his feast is observed on the Thursday. In 2027 the question does not arise and 14 May is his everywhere.
Matthias is the only one of the apostles who was not called by Jesus. He was chosen afterward, by the eleven who were left, and the choosing was the first thing the Church did after the Ascension.
He had been there the whole time. Peter’s condition was that the man must have been with them from John’s baptism of Jesus right through to the Ascension. Matthias met it, which means he had followed Jesus through the entire public ministry without being named once in any Gospel.
The Acts of the Apostles tells what happened. About a hundred and twenty believers were gathered in Jerusalem. Peter said the place left empty by Judas had to be filled, and two men were put forward: “Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias”. The assembly drew lots. The lot fell to Matthias, and “he was enrolled with the eleven apostles”. Preaching on his feast day in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI put it more simply: two were presented, and heaven chose.
That election is very nearly everything known about him, and it is the part the Church has kept thinking about. The Catholic Encyclopedia counts it as a third way of becoming an apostle — not called by Jesus, like the Twelve, and not by an extraordinary vocation, like Paul, but by a choice of the apostolic college. Benedict XVI saw the start of a chain in it: first Matthias, then Paul, then Barnabas, and on until the office of bishop took shape. He drew one more thing out of it. Matthias had stayed faithful to the end when many did not, and the call to take Judas’s place came on top of that faithfulness, almost making up for the betrayal.
Where he went afterward, and how he died, the sources do not agree. His feast is 14 May.
What they carried
Preaching on his feast day in 2010, Benedict XVI said Matthias had been a witness to the public life of Jesus and to his victory over death, and had remained faithful to him to the end, despite the fact that many abandoned him. That is the only hardship any document held here attaches to him.
State of life
apostle
Themes
hidden work · trust · ordinary work · friendship
St. Matthias (Catholic Encyclopedia)
- ONE ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLE CARRIES HIS LIFE AND EVERYTHING ELSE HELD HERE IS ABOUT WHAT HIS ELECTION MEANT. The Catholic Encyclopedia article “St. Matthias” (J. E. Jacquier, 1911) is a page long, and its own index describes it in five words that are also the shape of this record: the Apostle, in Scripture and legend. Beside it sit the encyclopedia’s article “Apostles, The”, Benedict XVI’s General Audience of 18 October 2006 on Judas Iscariot and Matthias together, and seven further Holy See documents, of which the useful ones are a General Audience of 10 May 2006 on apostolic succession, a homily preached at Porto on his feast day in 2010, an address of Pope Francis in 2017, and an encyclical of Benedict XIV of 1751. Both editions of the audience, English and Italian, were read against each other. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10066a.htm
- THE ELECTION IN ACTS 1 IS THE RECORD, AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA TELLS IT IN THREE SENTENCES. First the qualification: Matthias was “one of the seventy disciples of Jesus, and had been with Him from His baptism by John to the Ascension”. Then the occasion: in the days following the Ascension, Peter proposed to the assembled brethren, “who numbered one hundred and twenty”, that they choose one to fill the place of the traitor Judas in the Apostolate. Then the act itself: “Two disciples, Joseph, called Barsabas, and Matthias were selected, and lots were drawn, with the result in favour of Matthias, who thus became associated with the eleven Apostles.” Benedict XVI tells the same story from the other side and adds the one judgement any held document makes about the man himself: “We know nothing else about him, if not that he had been a witness to all Jesus’ earthly events”, remaining faithful to him to the end. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10066a.htm
- THE ENCYCLOPEDIA DEFENDS THE STORY AGAINST A NAMED CRITIC, WHICH IT RARELY DOES. Having told the election it turns at once to an objection: “Zeller has declared this narrative unhistoric, on the plea that the Apostles were in Galilee after the death of Jesus.” And it answers it: “As a matter of fact they did return to Galilee, but the Acts of the Apostles clearly state that about the feast of Pentecost they went back to Jerusalem.” So the one episode this man has is also the one part of his story the article argues FOR. Everything after it is the part the same article gives up on.
- WHAT THE ELECTION MEANT IS CARRIED BY THREE DOCUMENTS AND NOT BY HIS OWN PORTRAIT. The encyclopedia’s article on the apostles makes him a category: to be an apostle, it says, “an extraordinary vocation, as in the case of Paul, or a choice by the Apostolic College, as in the case of Matthias, could suffice”. That is a third way of becoming one, beside being called by Jesus and being called by the risen Christ. Benedict XVI, at the General Audience of 10 May 2006, five months before he reached Matthias himself, made it the first link in a chain: after the Ascension “the Twelve first made up their number by appointing Matthias in Judas’ place”, and then “first Matthias, then Paul, then Barnabas joined the Twelve, then others, until, in the second and third generations, the Bishop’s ministry took shape”. And Pope Francis, addressing the Patriarchs and Major Archbishops of the Eastern Churches on 9 October 2017, used it as a working precedent: “Among the tasks of Peter’s Successor, as it was for the election of the apostle Matthias (Cf. Acts 1: 15-26), there is that of ensuring good bishops for the particular Churches throughout the world.” https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060510.html
- HIS OWN PORTRAIT IS MOSTLY ABOUT SOMEBODY ELSE, AND THE AUDIENCE SAYS SO IN ITS FIRST LINE. Benedict XVI opens the General Audience of 18 October 2006 by “concluding our walk through the portrait gallery of the Apostles called directly by Jesus during his earthly life” — and Matthias was not one of those. The audience is about Judas Iscariot, and Matthias is its last paragraph, reached in a sentence that begins “In conclusion”. What it gives him is the election, quoted from Acts — “Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias”, and then “he was enrolled with the eleven apostles” — and one thought joining the two men: “To the greatness of his fidelity was later added the divine call to take the place of Judas, almost compensating for his betrayal.” That join is the pope’s and this record takes nothing else from the Judas material. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20061018.html
- THE ENGLISH EDITION OF THE 2006 AUDIENCE CITES A VERSE THAT DOES NOT EXIST. Explaining that Judas’s surname probably means “man from Kerioth”, the pope says the village is mentioned twice in Scripture. The Italian gives the two references as “Gs 15,25; Am 2,2” — Giosuè, the Book of Joshua, and Amos. The English gives them as “Gn 15: 25; Am 2: 2”, putting the first in Genesis. THERE IS NO GENESIS 15:25: that chapter has twenty-one verses. Kerioth is at Joshua 15:25. The Italian is right, the English is wrong, and the record follows the Italian.
- WHERE HE WENT AND HOW HE DIED CANNOT BE ESTABLISHED, AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA GIVES UP ON IT IN ONE SENTENCE: “All further information concerning the life and death of Matthias is vague and contradictory.” Then it sets out accounts that cannot all be true. According to Nicephorus “he first preached the Gospel in Judea, then in Ethiopia (that is to say, Colchis) and was crucified”. According to the Synopsis of Dorotheus he preached “to barbarians and cannibals in the interior of Ethiopia”, and “He died at Sebastopolis, and was buried there, near the Temple of the Sun”. And “Still another tradition maintains that Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem by the Jews, and then beheaded”. Three accounts, three deaths, and the article chooses none. Neither does this record. The relics are no firmer: “It is said that St. Helena brought the relics of St. Matthias to Rome, and that a portion of them was at Trier”, and the article at once reports a doubt that they are his at all. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10066a.htm
- A POPE LEGISLATED ABOUT HIS FEAST IN 1751 AND NEVER SAID WHEN IT WAS. Benedict XIV’s encyclical Prodiit Jamdudum, of 30 January 1751, was written to the bishops of the Papal States about abuses at Carnival, and its second occasion is this: in that year the last day of Carnival fell on “la vigilia con digiuno di San Mattia Apostolo” — the vigil, with its fast, of Saint Matthias the Apostle. Bishops from as far as the remoter parts of Italy had written to the pope foreseeing that the fast would be publicly broken. So the feast once had a vigil and a day of fasting attached to it, and in 1751 that fast collided with the end of Carnival. THE DOCUMENT NAMES NO DATE. It says nothing about February, nothing about a day of the month, and the date of his feast cannot be read out of it.
- THE FEAST IS 14 MAY, IT HAS MOVED, AND IN 2026 IT IS NOT KEPT EVERYWHERE ON THE SAME DAY. The universal calendar held here, published by the Liturgy Office of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, prints “St Matthias, Apostle” against 14 in May and grades it “feast”. The calendars of the United States bishops agree, printing “Saint Matthias, Apostle” in red and grading it Feast. THE DATE IS NOT THE OLD ONE. The Catholic Encyclopedia, written in 1911, records a different practice: “The Latin Church celebrates the feast of St. Matthias on 24 February and the Greek Church on 9 August.” The Latin date has moved since; the Greek date is the article’s own and is reported here as its.
- AND THE HELD CALENDAR PRINTS TWO CELEBRATIONS FOR HIS DAY IN 2026, WHICH IS WORTH SETTING OUT BECAUSE IT AFFECTS ANYONE PLANNING A CONFIRMATION AROUND IT. In 2026 the Ascension falls on Thursday 14 May. The calendar of the United States bishops handles that by province. In Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha and Philadelphia, 14 May 2026 is “THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD”, a Solemnity and a Holyday of Obligation, and Matthias gives way to it. In every other ecclesiastical province of the United States the Ascension is transferred to Sunday 17 May, and the same calendar says that “on Thursday, May 14, the Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle, is observed”. So in one year, in one country, his feast is kept in some dioceses and displaced in others. In 2027 the question does not arise and 14 May is his everywhere.
- NO PATRONAGE IS RECORDED FOR HIM AND THE SEARCHES CAME BACK EMPTY WITHOUT A SINGLE HIT TO EXPLAIN. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on him never uses the word patron. Nor does any other document held for this record attach a patronage to him. The Holy See’s own search was then run over vatican.va, in ASCII throughout, on 7 September 2026. The phrasings run in ASCII were “patron of alcoholics”, “patron of carpenters”, “patron of tailors”, “patron of Trier”, “patron of hope”, “patron of perseverance” and “Matthias, patron”, and every one of them returned nothing. The Italian phrasings “patrono degli alcolisti”, “patrono dei falegnami”, “patrono dei sarti”, “Mattia, patrono” and “san Mattia, patrono” returned nothing either. There is no declaring act, no papal use of a title, and no reference work describing a devotion.
- WHAT HE IS CALLED, AND THE ONE FORM THIS RECORD REFUSES. Two names are in the documents held here and no others: Matthias, in the English editions and throughout the encyclopedia, and Mattia, in every Italian edition and in Benedict XIV’s encyclical. The encyclopedia explains where the name comes from — the Greek Matthias, spelled Maththias in some manuscripts, “is a name derived from Mattathias, Hebrew Mattithiah”, and it means gift of God. MATTHAEUS IS NOT LISTED HERE AND THE REASON IS IN THE ARTICLE ITSELF. Matthaeus is the Latin of Matthew, a different apostle with his own record in this corpus, and the last sentence of the article on Matthias is a warning: “it should be remembered that, in the apocryphal writings, Matthew and Matthias have sometimes been confounded”. Adding that form here would reproduce, in the index a candidate searches, the confusion the source exists to flag.
- ONE SENTENCE ABOUT HIM EXISTS ONLY IN THE ITALIAN EDITION OF ITS OWN DOCUMENT, AND IT IS THE ONLY PLACE A POPE SAYS WHY HE WAS CHOSEN. At the General Audience of 14 May 2008, his feast day, Benedict XVI greeted the young people, the sick and the newly-weds with this: “La Liturgia odierna ricorda l’Apostolo Mattia, annoverato tra i Dodici per rendere testimonianza della risurrezione del Signore” — today’s liturgy remembers the Apostle Matthias, numbered among the Twelve to bear witness to the Lord’s resurrection. The English edition of that audience does not contain it. That is not a translator leaving something out: general audiences end with greetings delivered separately to each language group, and each edition carries its own. The English edition of that day carries an appeal for the victims of an earthquake in China and a welcome to English-speaking visitors instead.
- THREE FIELDS ON THIS CARD ARE EMPTY OR NEGATIVE AND ALL THREE ARE THE SOURCES SPEAKING. NO PLACE IS RECORDED FOR HIM. Not a birthplace, not a home town, not a grave anyone will vouch for: the only places attached to him personally are in the list of traditions that contradict one another, and the relics claimed at Rome are doubted in the same article that reports them. HE IS NOT LISTED AS A MARTYR, and that is a decision about evidence rather than a claim that he died in bed — the sources do not agree that he was martyred at all, and the reasoning is in the sources at the foot of this page. NO CONVERSION IS RECORDED EITHER. Every document held for this record was searched when this was checked on 7 September 2026, and nothing describes how he came to follow Jesus; the encyclopedia says only that he had already been with him from the baptism.