Apostle of the Seventy Linus, Pope of Rome

Apostle of the Seventy Linus is mentioned by the Apostle Paul in the Second Epistle to Timothy: "Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus..." (2 Tim. 4:21). According to the testimony of Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyon, he became the second Bishop of Rome after the Apostle Peter (according to various traditions, appointed either by Paul or by Peter himself). By later church tradition (the Liber Pontificalis), he was a native of Etruria (Tuscany).

He is numbered among the Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles. According to tradition, he suffered martyrdom during one of the early Roman persecutions, though some researchers consider a peaceful death possible as well.

His feast is kept on November 5/18 — together with the Apostles of the Seventy Patrobas, Hermas, Gaius, and Philologus — and also on January 4/17 in the general Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles.

IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION: the original note gave "September 23" as the feast day — this date genuinely exists, but belongs to the Western (Catholic) and Western-rite Orthodox tradition (Romanian, Italo-, Antiochian-Western); the primary commemoration accepted in the Slavic and Greek Byzantine tradition falls on November 5/18 and January 4/17 — these dates have been adopted as primary for this entry.