Saint Irenaeus, Bishop, Martyr and Doctor of the Church

Irenaeus was born about 130 in Asia Minor and as a boy heard Polycarp of Smyrna, who had known the apostle John. He became a priest at Lyon in Gaul, and in 177, during a persecution there, carried a letter from the local Church to the bishop of Rome. When he returned, the old bishop Pothinus had died in prison, and Irenaeus succeeded him.

His five books against the Gnostic teachers of his time set out the faith handed down from the apostles and are one of the earliest summaries of Christian teaching. He urged Pope Victor not to cut off the Churches of Asia over the date of Easter. He died about 202; a later tradition holds that he was martyred. Pope Francis named him a Doctor of the Church in 2022, the “Doctor of Unity.”