John the Theologian

The Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian is the youngest of the 12 apostles, but he was the only one remaining with the Saviour during the most difficult time of His suffering. And he was the only one of them whom persecutors failed to kill.
His gospel is also special – it speaks most clearly about the deity of Christ. Amazing, the passage from it – papyrus P52 – is the oldest extant manuscript of the New Testament, it is only 20 years younger than the original, ~130 AD. For comparison, the oldest copies of the texts of Homer, Plato, Tacitus are separated from the originals by about a thousand years (this is about the authenticity of ancient texts).
And, perhaps, one of the most mysterious events in the Holy Tradition is the death of St. John the Apostle. After living more than a hundred years, he retired from Ephesus and asked his disciples to bury him still alive, covering his face with a handkerchief. They did not dare to violate the teacher’s request. However, after a while, when the grave was opened, John’s body was not there. But every year, on may 21, a thin layer of ash (or “manna”) began to appear on the grave, bringing healing. In honor of this event, a spring celebration of the memory of the Apostle was established.
Many saints (Hippolytus of Rome, Andrew of Caesarea, and John of Kronstadt) believed that the Apostle John was still alive and would preach with Elijah and Enoch before the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In any case, the Holy Tradition recorded a change in the “order of nature” – corruption did not touch the body of the “Apostle of love”. This victory over corruption emphasizes his spiritual kinship with the most Holy Theotokos, who adopted John at the foot of the cross of the Lord.