Hierarch Saint Melito of Sardis

Saint Melito of Sardis was born around 100 AD and died around 177–190 AD (most commonly given as c. 180), during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, to whom he addressed an apology defending Christianity. He served as bishop of Sardis in Lydia, Asia Minor.

He traveled to Palestine to research the Old Testament canon; his Eclogae (Extracts) preserve the earliest known Christian list of Old Testament books, transmitted through Eusebius of Caesarea. His major surviving work is On the Pascha (Peri Pascha), one of the oldest complete Christian homilies to survive — its full Greek text was only rediscovered in 1940 and is regarded as an outstanding monument of early Christian liturgical rhetoric and poetry.

Melito belonged to the Quartodecimans, who celebrated Pascha on the 14th of Nisan regardless of the day of the week, a practice of the Asian churches that predated the later resolution of the Paschal date controversy. Polycrates of Ephesus called him "one of the great lights" of Christian Asia.