When is the Feast of St. Mark?
The Feast of St. Mark is a public holiday in the Italian city of Venice, on April 25th each year.
St. Mark's feast day is observed by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches on the anniversary of his death on this day in 68 AD.
History of the Feast of St. Mark
Details on the life of St. Mark are sketchy. He was too young to have been an apostle but is thought to have been one of the 70 disciples that Jesus sent out to preach the word in Judea.
He is known today as the author of one of the four Gospels in the New Testament. Biblical scholars believe his account of the life of Christ is based on what he learned from his close friend and travelling companion, St. Peter.
In the Coptic Christian tradition, St. Mark founded the Church in Alexandria, Egypt and therefore the founder of the Church in Africa. He is said to have been killed on April 25th 68 AD by Alexandrians who resented his efforts to replace their old gods with Christianity.
His association with the Italian city of Venice dates back to 828 AD when two Venetian merchants aided by some Greek monks stole the relics of St. Mark from Alexandria, which was then under the control of the Abbasid Islamic Caliphate. They smuggled the relics back to Venice.
Venetian tradition says that when Mark was travelling through Europe, he arrived at a lagoon in Venice when an angel appeared to him and told him that this would be his resting place.
The Basilica of St. Marks was built over the location of the relics. In the church, you can see a mosaic detailing the story of the relics and how the merchants stored the relics in a barrel of pig fat which they knew the Muslim guards wouldn't inspect too closely as their religion forbids them to eat pork.
St. Mark's (and Venice's) symbol is the winged lion, which you can see adorning the top of a column in St. Mark's Square, Venice.
April 25th is also a national holiday in Italy - Liberation Day, which celebrates the liberation of Italy by Allied troops at the end of the second world war.
