The veneration of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul began immediately after their execution. The place of their burial was sacred to the early Christians. In the fourth century, the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine the Great (+337; commemorated on May 21 of the Old Calendar) erected temples in honor of the holy apostles in Rome and Constantinople. Their joint celebration on June 29 (art. v.) was widespread already in the first centuries of Christianity. Celebrating the memory of the first—born apostles on this day, the Orthodox Church glorifies the spiritual firmness of St. Peter and the mind of St. Paul, praising in them the image of conversion of sinners and those who correct themselves: in the apostle Peter, the image of one who rejected the Lord and repented, in the apostle Paul, the image of one who resisted the Lord's preaching and then believed.
In the Russian Church, the veneration of the Apostles Peter and Paul began after the Baptism of Rus. According to church tradition, the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir (+1015; commemorated on July 15, art.) brought from Korsun an icon of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, which was subsequently presented as a gift to the Novgorod St. Sophia Cathedral. Frescoes of the 11th century depicting the Apostle Peter are still preserved in the same cathedral. In the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral, the wall paintings depicting the Apostles Peter and Paul date back to the XI–XII centuries. The first monastery in honor of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul was erected in Novgorod on Sinichaya Gora in 1185. At about the same time, the construction of the Petrovsky Monastery in Rostov began. Peter and Paul Monastery existed in the 13th century in Bryansk.
The names of the Apostles Peter and Paul, received at holy baptism, are especially common in Russia. These names were borne by many saints of Ancient Russia. The images of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the iconostasis of the Orthodox church have become an invariable part of the deisical order. The icons of the First Apostles Peter and Paul, painted by the brilliant Russian iconographer, Reverend Andrei Rublev, are especially famous.