Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer

Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer, bishop of Antioch, was a disciple of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian and, according to church tradition, the second bishop of the Antiochene Church after Evodius (already covered in this database as martyr_evodius_of_antioch) — the third in the full succession after the Apostle Peter.

He applied the epithet "God-bearer" (Theophoros) to himself at the opening of his letters; tradition holds that when Emperor Trajan asked what a "God-bearer" was, Ignatius answered that it was one who carries Christ in his heart.

During the persecution under Trajan, he was condemned to be devoured by wild beasts and sent under military guard to Rome; along the way he wrote seven epistles to Christian communities (to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrnaeans, and to Polycarp of Smyrna), in which he was the first in surviving Christian literature to use the phrase "Catholic (universal) Church" and stressed unity of the Church around the bishop in the celebration of the Eucharist.

In Rome, around 107–108 AD, he was thrown to the lions in the Colosseum — a fate he himself had asked Christians not to prevent, out of eagerness for martyrdom. His relics were later translated twice: first to Antioch in 438, and after the city's capture, to Rome, to the Church of St. Clement.

His feast is kept on December 20/January 2; the translation of his relics is commemorated January 29/February 11.