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Place

Cenchreae

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Summary

The eastern harbor of Corinth, home of the deaconess Phoebe and a small church (Rom 16:1).

  • Cenchreae was Corinth's eastern harbor, its gateway to the Aegean Sea and the route east to Ephesus and Syria.
  • Scripture names Cenchreae exactly twice: once as the port Paul sailed from at the end of his stay in Corinth, and once as the home of a small church.
  • Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchreae, is the first person Paul greets in Romans 16, and the only person there he calls both a servant and a great help.
  • The small scriptural record here is the whole record; this page states it plainly rather than filling it out with material Scripture does not give.

On this page

In Scripture

Verses
2
Books
2
See it on The missionary journeys of St. Paul→

Near Cenchreae

Straight-line distances, computed from the gazetteer coordinates.

Where it is

the country around it

Coordinates
37.8846° N, 22.9934° Efind it on the Atlas →
Region
Achaia
Kind of place
Town

1 place the record names with Cenchreae, the farthest 10 km away

1 Corinth · 10 kmCenchreae2 km · 1.2 miN
  1. 1Paul sails for Syria from CenchreaeActs 18:18 · 10 kmPaul remained in Corinth for quite some time before saying goodbye to the brothers. He had his head shaved in Cenchrea to keep a vow he had made, and then he sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.
  • Located: the gazetteer fixes one site
  • A dashed line ends at a place the gazetteer does not fix
Each line joins Cenchreae to a place one of its verses names, and carries that verse. No line is headed, because none of these verses says which way anyone went. The lines are straight between two coordinates and are not roads. A dashed line ends at a place the gazetteer does not fix. Every mark sits at the coordinates the gazetteer records for it.
Map of the missionary journeys of the apostle Paul across the eastern Mediterranean.
The missionary journeys of St. Paul: the eastern Mediterranean world of Acts: Cyprus, Asia, Greece and the road to Rome.F. J. Knecht, Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture, public domain.Open this plate full size in The Atlas →

Why Cenchreae matters

Corinth sat on a narrow strip of land between two seas, and it kept a harbor on each side. Lechaeum faced west toward Italy; Cenchreae, about seven miles from the city, faced east toward the Aegean and the sea route to Ephesus and Syria. When Paul finished his eighteen-month stay in Corinth on his second missionary journey, it was from Cenchreae that he set sail, not from Corinth's western port, because his next stop was across the Aegean. Before he sailed, Paul had his head shaved at Cenchreae to keep a vow he had made. Scripture does not say what the vow was, and this page does not guess beyond what the text states. The only other mention of Cenchreae in the Bible names a person, not an event. When Paul opens the final chapter of Romans with a long list of greetings, the very first name is Phoebe, whom he calls a servant of the church in Cenchreae and someone who has been a great help to many people, including Paul himself. He asks the church at Rome to welcome her and give her whatever help she needs, almost certainly because she was the one carrying his letter to them.

Paul's vow at Cenchreae, and Phoebe of its church

Acts 18:18 and Romans 16:1-2, the whole scriptural record of this place

Read Acts 18:18 and Romans 16:1-2, the whole scriptural record of this place

What happened here, in order

in the order the canon tells it

Cenchreae in Scripture

2 verses name it, in 2 books

Open a book to read its mentions here. Text: Berean Standard Bible.

First namedActs 18:18Paul remained in Corinth for quite some time before saying goodbye to the brothers. He had his head shaved in Cenchrea to keep a vow he had made, and then he sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.Last namedRomans 16:1I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea.

Old TestamentNew Testamentsegment width = share of mentions

Common questions

Where was Cenchreae, and why does Paul sail from there rather than from Corinth's other harbor?

Cenchreae was Corinth's eastern harbor, about seven miles from the city, facing the Aegean Sea. Paul sailed from there because his route led to Ephesus and Syria, across the Aegean, not west toward Italy where Corinth's other harbor, Lechaeum, faced.

What vow did Paul make before sailing from Cenchreae?

Readers differ; the positions are named

Scripture does not say. Acts 18:18 records only that he had his head shaved at Cenchreae to keep a vow, without naming it. Some readers have proposed a Nazirite-style vow, but the text itself gives no details, and this page states that plainly rather than filling in an answer Scripture does not provide.

Who was Phoebe, and what did Paul ask the Roman church to do for her?

Phoebe was a servant of the church at Cenchreae, and Paul calls her a great help to many people, including himself. He asks the church at Rome to welcome her and give her whatever help she needs, likely because she carried his letter to them. Her exact office within the church is a separate question, addressed in full on the Phoebe featured page.

Is Cenchreae's church the same congregation as the church at Corinth?

No. Romans 16:1 calls it "the church in Cenchrea," naming it separately from the church at Corinth itself, though the two towns were close enough that the two congregations likely shared members and ties.

Sources cited

Every source behind MannaFest →

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