Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer, Bishop of Antioch

Ignatius was the second or third bishop of Antioch after the apostles. Under Emperor Trajan he was arrested and taken under a guard of ten soldiers to Rome, to be thrown to wild beasts. On the way, at Smyrna and Troas, he wrote seven letters — to churches of Asia Minor, to the Romans and to Bishop Polycarp — which survive. In them he begged the Christians of Rome not to try to save him: “I am the wheat of God, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts.”

He was killed in the arena about 107. Byzantine tradition calls him the God-Bearer and holds that he was the child whom Jesus took in his arms (Mark 9:36).