Hierarch Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth

Dionysius of Corinth was bishop of Corinth in the 2nd century (from c. AD 170), a prominent early Christian writer and apologist known chiefly through Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History (Book IV).

He wrote at least seven or eight catholic epistles to various churches — Athens, Sparta, Nicomedia, Crete (Gortyna), Amastris, Rome, and a private letter to a woman named Chrysophora — instructing them in the faith, urging unity, and refuting heresies, notably Marcionism. The original texts have not survived; only fragments quoted by Eusebius remain.

Neither Eusebius nor St. Jerome records a martyr's death for him — both indicate he died peacefully while still bishop; the tradition of his martyrdom appears only in 11th-century Byzantine sources and is generally regarded as unreliable.

The Church commemorates him on November 29/December 12 as a hierarch.

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: category martyr→hierarch, since the earliest and most authoritative sources (Eusebius, Jerome) do not confirm a violent death. The entry's former sole image turned out to depict an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT, much later saint — Venerable-Martyr Dionysius of Vatopedi (an Athonite monk executed by the Ottomans in 1822) — removed as belonging to a different person. Also distinguished from a third, separate Martyr Dionysius of Corinth — a companion of Hieromartyr Quadratus of Corinth (3rd c., feast March 10) — the three figures should not be confused.