Blessed Theophylact holds that "the Spirit forbade the apostles to preach in Asia and Bithynia, because He foresaw that the inhabitants there would be seized by the heresy of the Pneumatomachi."
Bishop Michael writes: "This happened when they had reached one of the provinces included in proconsular Asia, namely Mysia. Because of this, they intended to go into Bithynia, a northwestern region of Asia Minor bordering Mysia. But the Spirit again did not allow them to go there.
"Thus they were on the borders of Mysia and Bithynia. In neither place did the Holy Spirit permit them to preach. As is clear from what follows, they were being called to labor in Europe.
"This was pleasing to the Holy Spirit. And they, certainly not without His special prompting, resolved to draw nearer to the borders of Asia Minor and Europe.
"Therefore, passing by Mysia, that is, going through it or along its border without preaching, they came down to the maritime city of Troas in Mysia. From there it was not far by sea to cross into Europe."
The account of the journey through Phrygia and Galatia is brief here. Yet there is a supposition that precisely at this time the Apostle Paul founded those Churches in Galatia to which he wrote one of his most important epistles. The same may be said of the Phrygian Churches in Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis.
"After the death of Amyntas, king of Galatia, Galatia was understood to include Galatia proper, Pisidia, and Lycaonia. Yet Acts hardly follows the political division here, rather than the ethnographic one.
"One may rightly think that by Galatia in verse 6 is meant not the Roman province, but Galatia in the proper sense. It is understandable why it is mentioned after Phrygia, for it lies beyond Phrygia.
"The writer of Acts had to mention Lystra and Derbe because they lay on the road from Cilicia to Phrygia.
"One may also conjecture with probability why the writer of Acts marks Paul's intermediate passage from Cilicia to Derbe not by the name of the region, Lycaonia, but by the cities belonging to it.
"The writer of Acts intended to report that Saint Timothy joined Paul during his passage through Lycaonia. He also intended to give rather detailed information about him.
"It was natural for the writer of Acts to indicate more precisely Saint Timothy's homeland, the city from which he came. He did not limit himself to naming only the country.
"That the Spirit mentioned in verse 6 was the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is most clearly proved by this fact. The prohibition received from Him by Paul and his companions was wholly unexpected for them and contrary to their desire.
"The cause of this prohibition cannot be sought either in the religious and moral condition of that province, or in its political condition.
"But since Paul, after being kept from Asia, preached in Phrygia and Galatia, it is permissible to think that he and his companions were forbidden to go into Asia for the sake of the rise of these Churches."
Having in mind the indication of the apostle's preaching in Galatia, D. Glagolev cites, as far as possible, everything said about the enlightenment of the Galatians in Paul's Epistle to them.
And since the Apostle Paul endured great sorrows and illnesses there in his labors, D. Glagolev examines in detail the well-known saying of the apostle: "a thorn was given me in the flesh" (2 Cor 12:7).
THEOSIS