Hieromartyr Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (+202)

The Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons was born in 130 in the city of Smyrna. Here too he received a brilliant education: he mastered poetry, philosophy, rhetoric and other sciences. In the truths of the Christian teaching he was instructed by the hierarch Polycarp of Smyrna (commemorated 23 February), a disciple of the Apostle John the Theologian. He also baptised the young man, ordained him presbyter, and sent him to the Gallic city of Lugdunum (present-day Lyons, in France), to the aged hierarch Pothinus. Soon Irenaeus was given a responsible task: the confessors sent a letter by his hand to Eleutherius, Pope of Rome (177–190). In the saint’s absence all the prominent Christians were thrown into prison. In 178, a year after Bishop Pothinus’s martyrdom, the blessed Irenaeus was consecrated Bishop of the city of Lugdunum. “In a short time,” the hierarch Gregory of Tours wrote of the saint, “by his preaching he made the whole of Lugdunum a Christian city!”

In the reign of the Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211), in 202, the hierarch Irenaeus was beheaded for confessing the true faith.