Lydia, first European convert

A dealer in purple cloth. Luke introduces the first convert in Europe as a woman running a business in a luxury textile — the richest trade in Philippi. Her house became the first European church.

Acts 16:11–15, 40 describes Paul's first convert on European soil: Lydia of Thyatira, a porphyropolis — a seller of Tyrian purple, the most expensive dye in the ancient Mediterranean, whose trade was regulated by imperial monopoly. The Lord "opened her heart" during a riverside prayer meeting. She was baptized along with her household (no husband is mentioned), insisted Paul and Silas lodge with her, and by the end of the chapter her home has become the Philippian congregation's meeting place. The letter to the Philippians — Paul's warmest and most joyful — is written to a church that began in her house.