Saint of the Week: Polycarp
2/26/2025
St. Polycarp
Bishop of Smyrna and Martyr
(69 A.D. – 23 Feb 156 A.D.)
Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna (today’s Izmir) on Turkey’s west coast. Letters to the seven churches in Asia mentioned in the book of Revelation include a letter to the Smyrna church identifying it as a church undergoing persecution. Among the earliest Christians whose writings survive, Polycarp occupies a prominent place in the history of the Christian Church. As an elder of a key congregation in his day, Polycarp was a major early contributor to the development of our Christian faith. He is also from an era whose orthodoxy is accepted among Catholics, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, and even mainstream Protestants.
St. Jerome wrote that Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John and by him ordained presbyter of Smyrna. He was an elder of a key congregation that was a majorcontributor to the founding of the Christian Church. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, knew of Polycarp and wrote a memoir on the martyr. As evidence of his life and works we, therefore, have (1) Irenaeus's brief memoir of Polycarp; (2) a letter from Ignatius of Antioch to Polycarp, written circa 115 AD when Ignatius was transiting Turkey in chains enroute to Rome where he would eventually die a martyr; (3) a letter from Polycarp to the church at Philippi; and (4) an account of his arrest, trial, conviction, and martyrdom of Polycarp, which his congregation penned posthumously.
Polycarp was denounced to the government, arrested, and tried on charges of being a Christian. When the Roman proconsul urged him to save his life by cursing Christ, Polycarp replied: "Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" The magistrate was reluctant to kill a gentle old man, but he felt he had no choice.
Sentenced to be burned, as he waited for the fire to be lit, Polycarp prayed:
Lord God Almighty, Father of your blessed and beloved child Jesus Christ, through whom we have received knowledge of you, God of angels and hosts and all creation, and of the whole race of the upright who live in your presence: I bless you that you have thought me worthy of this day and hour, to be numbered among the martyrs and share in the cup of Christ, for resurrection to eternal life, for soul and body in the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit. Among them may I be accepted before you today, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, just as you, the faithful and true God, have prepared and foreshown and brought about. For this reason and for all things I praise you, I bless you, I glorify you, through the eternal heavenly high priest Jesus Christ, your beloved child, through whom be glory to you, with him and the Holy Spirit, now and for the ages to come. Amen.
Shortly after the flames appeared, a soldier mercifully stabbed Polycarp to death by order of the magistrate who could not bear to see the saint suffer such an awful fate. Friends gave Polycarp’s remains an honorable burial and wrote an account of his death which it distributed to other churches throughout Christendom.
