St. Polycarp

Saint Polycarp (c. 69 - c. 155) was bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor and one of the Apostolic Fathers, the generation of Christian teachers who received the faith directly from the apostles. According to Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, who had heard him preach as a boy, Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John and had conversed with others who had seen the Lord. He thus stands as a living link between the apostolic age and the wider second-century Church. As bishop, Polycarp shepherded the church of Smyrna for many decades through an age of persecution and doctrinal confusion, firmly opposing early heresies such as those of Marcion and the Gnostics. He welcomed Saint Ignatius of Antioch as the latter passed through Smyrna on the way to martyrdom in Rome, and Ignatius addressed one of his famous letters to him. Polycarp's own Letter to the Philippians, which survives, is a treasured witness to early Christian teaching, pastoral care, and use of the New Testament writings. Near the end of his life he traveled to Rome to confer with Pope Anicetus about the date of Easter; the two did not reach agreement but parted in peace and communion, a celebrated example of charity amid disagreement. Polycarp's death is recounted in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the earliest detailed account of a Christian martyrdom after the New Testament. Arrested during a local persecution and urged in the arena to curse Christ, the aged bishop replied that in eighty-six years of serving Christ he had never been wronged by him, and that he could not blaspheme his King and Savior. Condemned to be burned alive, he was, the account relates, finally killed by the thrust of a blade when the flames did not consume him. His martyrdom is usually dated to around 155, and the faithful of Smyrna gathered his bones as relics more precious than gold, an early witness to the Christian veneration of martyrs' relics. Venerated as a saint from the earliest centuries, long before formal canonization processes existed, Polycarp is honored on February 23 in the General Roman Calendar. He is traditionally invoked against earaches and dysentery. His memory endures especially in the ancient church of Smyrna, modern Izmir in Turkey, where the Church of Saint Polycarp remains a place of Catholic worship.