Gaius of Corinth

Saint Gaius, apostle, was a Christian of Corinth, baptized by the Apostle Paul and mentioned in the New Testament. He is venerated above all on the island of Paxos in the Ionian Sea, where tradition says he preached and died. The capital of the island, Gaios, takes its name from him.

Gaius appears in the Epistle to the Romans as the man who hosted Paul at Corinth. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul says that he baptized Crispus and Gaius at Corinth. According to the tradition of Paxos, Paul's Corinthian disciple Gaius (others say Crispus as well) preached Christianity on the island and died there. He is said to be buried beneath the altar of the church of the Holy Apostles in Gaios.

In the work of Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria on Paxos and Antipaxos, of 1887, it is noted that in the church of the Holy Apostles, on the left, stand the wooden altars of Saints Peter and Paul, and on the other side those of Saints Gaius and Crispus, who by tradition were buried there. On the icon of the Holy Apostles Gaius and Crispus in the church, dedicated in 1858, it is said that the Apostle Gaius is commemorated on 5 November and Crispus on 30 July. A local author, D. Kontaris, notes that since 1985 the memory of Saint Gaius has been kept together with the Apostles Peter and Paul, on 29 June, with a procession of his icon. The dates of commemoration in the sources do not agree: 4 October, 5 November and 29 June.