According to the apocryphal Acts of Philip, the apostle was the evangelizer of Phrygia (central Anatolia, Turkey). He settled in the city of Hierapolis where he established a so-called ‘spiritual dispensary’: the salvation of the soul was manifested in the miraculous healing of the body. He would have been crucified, head down like St. Peter. In the ruins of Hierapolis archaeologists discovered an octagonal martyrium built on his tomb. In the 5th century his body was transferred in a new basilica. A liturgical bread stamp of the 6th century shows us the Apostle Philip in the middle of two monumental scales leading respectively to the domed martyrium (right) and to the basilica (left). Later in the 6th century the apostle’s relics were transferred to Constantinople, then to Rome in the Basilica of the Holy Apostles. This latest translation happened on May 1, which became the feast day of St Philip in the Latin Church (14 November in the Greek Church). When the feast of St Joseph the Worker was established to counter the Labour day celebrations in 1955, the feast of S. Philip was moved to May 3. (Source : R. Burnet, Les douze apôtres, Turnhout, 2014)
