St. Barnabas

St. Barnabas was a Levite from the island of Cyprus, named Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas, meaning "son of encouragement," for his generous and reassuring spirit. In the earliest days of the Church he sold his field and laid the proceeds at the apostles' feet, and it was he who, when the others still feared the newly converted Saul, vouched for him and brought him into the community, so joining his name to Paul's from the beginning.

Sent to guide the flourishing church at Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, he then accompanied St. Paul on the first missionary journey through Cyprus and Asia Minor. Though numbered among the apostles in the broad sense, the two later parted over his cousin John Mark and went their separate ways in the Lord's work. Tradition holds that he preached in his native Cyprus and was martyred there. He is celebrated on 11 June and honored as the founder of the Church of Cyprus.