Cephas of Iconium

Saint Cephas the Apostle is one of the Seventy Apostles and was bishop at Iconium or at Colophon. Nothing more is known of him. The name "Cephas" is Aramaic and means "rock", like Peter. The Church commemorates all the Seventy on 4 January, and honours Cephas also on 30 March, together with the apostles Sosthenes, Apollos, Caesar and Epaphroditus, and on 8 December, with the same apostles and Onesiphorus.

According to another view, Cephas is not a separate man but a variant of the name of the Apostle Peter, whose first name was Simon. The Greek "Peter" comes from the Aramaic nickname "Cephas", given by Jesus. The words of the synaxaria, "Cephas, whom the Apostle Paul rebuked at Antioch", point to the Epistle to the Galatians, where Paul rebukes Peter, and Cephas is mentioned in the same passage among the "pillars", together with James and John.

Cephas is mentioned only by a single word, among the apostles of the Seventy, in sources such as the Synaxarion of the Church of Constantinople of the tenth century, the Menologion of Basil II at the end of the same century, the Great Menaion of Metropolitan Macarius of 1530 and others.

Demetrius of Rostov calls Cephas one of the Seventy and bishop at Colophon, and writes: "Cephas, whom the Apostle Paul rebuked at Antioch, was bishop in Iconium". He cites Eusebius of Caesarea, who, interpreting the First Epistle to the Corinthians, considers Cephas a lesser apostle and gives him as an example that the lesser apostles could be more than seventy.