Pothinus | |
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 Stained glass window depicting Pothinus. Église Saint-Pothin, Lyon | |
| Martyr and Bishop | |
| Born | 87 AD |
| Died | 177 AD Lyon, Gaul |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church |
| Canonized | Pre-congregation |
| Feast | 2 June |
Saint Pothinus (French : Saint Pothin) was the first bishop of Lyon and the first bishop of Gaul. He is first mentioned in a letter attributed to Irenaeus of Lyon. The letter was sent from the Christian communities of Lyon and Vienne to the Roman province of Asia.
According to Irenaeus, Pothinus was born around the year 87, [1] probably at Smyrna. He was a disciple of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and accompanied him to Rome in 158. [2]
Pope Anicetus sent him to evangelize the Gauls. Pothinus established himself at Lyons, and founded there a flourishing Church, over which he presided for almost twenty years. [2] In asserting his own authority as bishop of Lyon, Irenaeus says that Pothinus had been his predecessor in the position, and the first holder of that office.
By 177, a large number of the Christians in the area of Vienne and Lyons were Greeks from Asia. A violent persecution was there against them while Pothinus was bishop of Lyons, and Irenæus, who had been sent there by Polycarp out of Asia, was a priest of that city. [3]
Pothinus died at the age of ninety, in about 177 AD, martyred along with Alexander, Attalus, Espagathus, Maturus, and Sanctius, during Persecution in Lyon during the tenure of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Pothinus and several companions were seized by a mob and taken to the magistrate; Pothinus is believed to have died from the abuse he suffered in prison, while the others were killed by wild beasts in the local amphitheater.
The similarity of the name Pothinus and the Old French verb foutre lead to syncretic amalgamation of Pothinus and Priapus, [4] under the assimilated name Saint Foutin .
Irenaeus was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by combating heterodox or Gnostic interpretations of Scripture as heresy and defining proto-orthodoxy. Originating from Smyrna, he had seen and heard the preaching of Polycarp, who in turn was said to have heard John the Evangelist, and thus was the last-known living connection with the Apostles.
Polycarp was a Christian bishop of Smyrna. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to consume his body. Polycarp is regarded as a saint and Church Father in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.
Pope Soter was the bishop of Rome from c. 167 to his death in c. 174. According to the Annuario Pontificio, the dates may have ranged from 162–168 to 170–177. He was born in Fondi, Campania, today Lazio region, Italy. Soter is known for declaring that marriage was valid only as a sacrament blessed by a priest and also for formally inaugurating Easter as an annual festival in Rome. His name, from Greek Σωτήριος from σωτήρ "saviour", would be his baptismal name, as his lifetime predates the tradition of adopting papal names.
Year 177 (CLXXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Commodus and Plautius. The denomination 177 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Lugdunum was an important Roman city in Gaul, established on the current site of Lyon. The Roman city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, but continued an existing Gallic settlement with a likely population of several thousands. It served as the capital of the Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis and was an important city in the western half of the Roman Empire for centuries. Two emperors, Claudius and Caracalla, were born in Lugdunum. In the period 69–192 AD, the city's population may have numbered 50,000 to 100,000, and possibly up to 200,000 inhabitants.
June 1 - Eastern Orthodox Church calendar - June 3
Martyrdom of Polycarp is a manuscript written in the form of a letter that relates the religious martyrdom of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and disciple of John the Apostle in the 2nd century AD. It forms the earliest account of Christian martyrdom outside of the New Testament. The author of Martyrdom of Polycarp is unknown, but it has been attributed to members of the group of early Christian theologians known as the Church Fathers. The letter, sent from the church in Smyrna to another church in Asia Minor at Philomelium, is partly written from the point of view of an eye-witness, recounting the arrest of the elderly Polycarp, the Romans' attempt to execute him by fire, and subsequent miraculous events.
Saint Blandina was a Christian martyr who died in Lugdunum during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
The Archdiocese of Lyon, formerly the Archdiocese of Lyon–Vienne–Embrun, is a metropolitan archdiocese of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church in France. The archbishops of Lyon serve as successors to Saints Pothinus and Irenaeus, the first and second bishops of Lyon, respectively, and are also called primates of Gaul. He is usually elevated to the rank of cardinal. Bishop Olivier de Germay was appointed archbishop on 22 October 2020.
Saint Benignus of Dijon was a martyr honored as the patron saint and first herald of Christianity of Dijon, Burgundy. His feast falls, with All Saints, on November 1; his name stands under this date in the Martyrology of St. Jerome.
The persecution in Lyon in AD 177 was an outbreak of persecution of Christians in Lugdunum, Roman Gaul, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, recorded in a contemporary letter preserved in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chapter 1, which was written 150 years later in Palestine. Gregory of Tours also describes the persecution in the 6th century in De Gloria martyrum.
Saints Ferreolus and Ferrutio are venerated as martyrs and saints by the Catholic Church, especially in Besançon where they are honored as its patron saints.
Gaul was an important early center of Latin Christianity in late antiquity and the Merovingian period. By the middle of the 3rd century, there were several churches organized in Roman Gaul, and soon after the cessation of persecution the bishops of the Latin world assembled at Arles, in AD 314. The Church of Gaul passed through three dogmatic crises in the late Roman period, Arianism, Priscillianism and Pelagianism. Under Merovingian rule, a number of "Frankish synods" were held, marking a particularly Germanic development in the Western Church. A model for the following Frankish synods was set by Clovis I, who organized the First Council of Orléans (511).
Saint Thraseas was a martyr under the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Prior to his death he served as Bishop of Eumenia, Phrygia, in Asia Minor.
The Église Saint-Polycarpe is a Roman Catholic church located in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon, on the slopes of La Croix-Rousse, between rue René Leynaud, rue Burdeau and passages Mermet and Thiaffait. It is the oldest church of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri.
The Église Saint-Pothin is a Roman Catholic church located in Lyon, France. The parish church sits on the left bank of the Rhône, in the 6th arrondissement of Lyon, at the Place Edgar Quinet. By order of 2 May 2007, the whole church was included in the supplementary inventory of monuments historiques.
St. John's Cathedral in Izmir is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Izmir. The cathedral is dedicated to John the Evangelist, who in the Book of Revelation sent greetings and instructions to the Seven churches of Asia, including Smyrna (Izmir).
The Metropolis of Smyrna is an ecclesiastical territory (diocese) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, modern Turkey. The Christian community of Smyrna was one of the Seven Churches of Asia, mentioned by Apostle John in the Book of Revelation. It was initially an archbishopric, but was promoted to a metropolis during the 9th century. Although the local Christian element was reduced during the 14th and 15th centuries, it retained its ecclesiastical autonomy continuously until 1922.
The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom is a 2013 book by Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. In her book, Moss advances a thesis that:
Primate of the Gauls is a title given since 1079 to the archbishop of Lyon, former capital of the Three Gauls then land of the Roman Empire, and has described the authority he has exercised in the past over the other bishops of France. The primacy of a title conferred on archbishop guarantees a theoretical jurisdiction over several ecclesiastical provinces. In France, only the title of Primate of the Gauls and Primate of Normandy, respectively assigned to the archbishops of Lyon and Rouen, are still used.
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