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The Apostle we know of today as Saint Paul started out a Jewish tentmaker from the city of Tarsus. Once Paul, at a young age, was converted to Christianity, he devoted himself completely to spreading the word of Christ to as a vast an area as possible, and especially to Gentiles. (Non-Jewish people, or people who could be swayed away from Judaism in Eurasia at his time.) This earned Apostle Paul the name "Saint Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles."

If not for the tireless work of Saint Paul, Christianity might have remained primarily a sect of unorthodox Jews. But St. Paul the Apostle set himself to broaden its membership, by extending the teachings of Christ and His church to everyone.

Apostle Paul was a man of passionate eloquence and unwavering love for his Master. He preached the new gospel in the cities of Asia Minor and Greece and finally in Rome itself. Behind him he left a line of devoted communities that stretched from Palestine to Italy.

Everywhere he went, Apostle Paul founded churches. Some of the letters Paul the Apostle sent to these churches were widely circulated, eagerly read and passed around from follower to follower - some of these letters later became part of the New Testament itself.

The man who dedicated his life to bringing the teachings of Christ to the Greek and Roman world, was a man who never met Jesus during Jesus' earthly ministry. Although he did meet Jesus' brother, James.

Why was Saint Paul called the Apostle of the Gentiles?

Apostle Paul was not the first to preach to the Gentiles but was known as Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles because he was determined stand against the dominance of Jewish law and his preaching decided the course of Christianity.

It is because of St. Paul the Apostle, more than anyone else, that Christianity rose from being a small Jewish sect to one of the world's greatest religions.

The fourteen New Testament letters which come from Apostle Paul show him trying to moderate the influence of Jewish ideas and traditions on a new religion and a new spiritual age, and re-interpreting Old Testament laws by their relevance to the teachings of Jesus.