Saint Apollinaris of Ravenna

Saint Apollinaris was the first bishop of Ravenna and one of the first shepherds of all northern Italy. The Church venerates him as a martyr and commemorates him on July 20, although the Roman Martyrology states that he died on July 23.

Very little is known about his life. The Roman Missal places him in the second half of the second century, and some historians place his ministry at the turn of the second and third centuries. We know neither his origins nor the years of his birth and death. What is certain is that in Ravenna he was venerated from very early times as the city’s first bishop and as a martyr.

The oldest testimony to this veneration is a sermon by Saint Peter Chrysologus, one of his successors, who was bishop of Ravenna in the fifth century. He preached it on the feast of Apollinaris, calling him the first bishop of the city and a martyr. The Martyrology, for its part, says that as a good shepherd he went before his flock and, according to tradition, adorned the Church of Ravenna at Classe with the glory of martyrdom.

The detailed stories of his life come from a Passion written only in the seventh century, probably under Bishop Maurus, when Ravenna sought to show that its Church had apostolic origins. According to this legend, Apollinaris came from Antioch, was a disciple of Saint Peter, and was sent by him to Ravenna. Beaten and driven out of the city several times, he is said to have died at Classe seven days after a final beating. Historians do not regard these details as historical.

Apollinaris was buried at Classe, then the port of Ravenna. In the sixth century the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe was built over his tomb and consecrated in 549. In its apse a mosaic survives that shows him with his arms raised in prayer among twelve sheep. When John Paul II visited Ravenna in 1986, he spoke of him as the first bishop in whom the local Church recognizes its spiritual father, and of the labors and sufferings by which he laid firm foundations for the Christian history of the city.

Apollinaris was not canonized in the present-day sense of the word, because the Church has venerated him since antiquity. The third edition of the Roman Missal, published in 2002, entered his memorial in the General Roman Calendar as an optional memorial. The collect of the day asks that the faithful may walk the way of salvation that Bishop Apollinaris showed by his teaching and his martyrdom.