St. Polycarp of Smyrna

Polycarp was born around the year sixty-nine, less than a generation after the Resurrection, and as a young man was a disciple of the Apostle John during John's last years at Ephesus. From John he received the Faith and from John, the tradition holds, his consecration as bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor. He governed that see for upwards of sixty years.

He stands at the visible bridge between the apostolic generation and the second-century Fathers. He gave hospitality to Ignatius of Antioch as the chained bishop passed through Smyrna on the way to his martyrdom at Rome, received four of his letters, and gathered the others for forwarding. He afterwards wrote his own short letter to the Philippians, the only surviving writing from his hand. His own disciple, Irenaeus of Lyons, would as an old man recall the way Polycarp had described those who had seen the Lord, and would credit him with the orthodox reading of the Gospel of John against the Gnostics.

In his very old age he travelled to Rome to discuss the date of Pascha with Pope Anicetus. They could not bring their traditions into agreement, but they parted in peace, and Anicetus gave Polycarp the place of honor at the Eucharist as to one whose hands had been blessed by the hands of an apostle.

Around the year one hundred and fifty-five a pagan festival in Smyrna sought victims, and Polycarp was named. He was taken at a country house outside the city, set on an ass, and brought into the stadium before the proconsul, who pressed him to swear by the genius of the emperor and revile Christ. Polycarp answered that for eighty-six years he had served his Lord and that his Lord had done him no wrong; he could not blaspheme his King who saved him.

He was condemned to be burned. As the fire was kindled around him he gave thanks aloud that he had been counted worthy to share in the cup of Christ. When the fire did not consume him, an executioner stabbed him with a dagger, and his blood put out the flames. The church of Smyrna gathered his bones as more precious than jewels and kept the annual day of his death as his 'birthday', the first surviving use of that expression for a martyr's anniversary, which the Church has not ceased to use since.