Saint Polycarp of Smyrna was a bishop, an Apostolic Father, and one of the most important martyrs of the early Christian Church. A disciple of the Apostle John himself, he led the church of Smyrna (modern İzmir, in Turkey) until, around 155 AD, he was burned at the stake for refusing to renounce his faith. The account of his death, written by his own community, is one of the earliest and most moving martyrdom stories in all of Christian history.
Smyrna is İzmir, the great city just up the coast from my home in Kuşadası, and whenever I guide pilgrims there, Polycarp’s is the story I most love to tell. He is the living bridge between the apostles who knew Jesus and the Church that came after, a man who, as a boy, sat and listened to people who had walked with Christ. To stand in his city and tell his story is one of the privileges of being a guide in this land.
I mentioned him in my article on the letter to Smyrna, but he deserves more. Here is the full story of his martyrdom, as his own church wrote it down.
Who Was Saint Polycarp?
Polycarp was born around 69 AD, in the generation that came of age just after the apostles. He became the bishop of Smyrna, one of the great cities of Roman Asia and one of the Seven Churches of Revelation, and he led that community for the better part of his long life.
We know him today as one of the “Apostolic Fathers”, the first Christian leaders who had been taught directly by the apostles, and who carried their teaching faithfully into the next generation. A genuine letter he wrote, his Epistle to the Philippians, still survives.
Polycarp also knew Ignatius of Antioch. When Ignatius was taken across Asia Minor to die in Rome, the two bishops met in Smyrna, and later Ignatius wrote him a personal letter with a short advice: “Stand firm, as does an anvil which is beaten.” Polycarp, for his part, collected the letters of Ignatius and sent copies to church of Philippi.
Saint Polycarp and the Apostle John
Here is the detail that gives me goosebumps every time. By the firm tradition of the early Church, Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John, the same John who, by tradition, lived out his final years here at Ephesus and is buried beneath the great basilica on Ayasuluk Hill. It is said that John himself appointed Polycarp as bishop of Smyrna.
And we don’t only have this at second hand: a later bishop, Irenaeus of Lyon, was as a young man a student of Polycarp, and he wrote that he could still remember the old man speaking of his conversations with John and with others who had seen the Lord. So we have a chain of living memory (John to Polycarp to Irenaeus) reaching back to touch the apostles themselves. You can read more about John’s own story in my guide to the Basilica of St John on toursaroundturkey.com.
Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and the Seven Churches
It is no small thing that Polycarp led the church of Smyrna in particular. Smyrna is the second of the Seven Churches addressed in the Book of Revelation, and its letter is one of only two that contain no rebuke at all, only encouragement to a community facing poverty and persecution: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
Reading those words alongside Polycarp’s own faithful death, decades later in the very same city, is one of the most powerful connections on any Seven Churches journey. I’ve written much more about it in my guides to the Seven Churches of Revelation and the church of Smyrna.
The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp
Around 155 AD, when Polycarp was already an old man of eighty-six, a wave of persecution swept Smyrna. The crowds in the arena, baying for Christians to be thrown to the beasts, began to call for Polycarp by name.
Friends hid him at a farm outside the city, but he was betrayed and arrested, and brought before the Roman proconsul in the stadium of Smyrna. According to the famous account written by his own church soon afterwards (the Martyrdom of Polycarp, one of the earliest such documents we possess), the proconsul, perhaps reluctant to execute so old and respected a man, urged him simply to swear by the spirit of Caesar, curse Christ, and go free.
Polycarp would not. He was condemned to be burned alive. The account tells that the flames rose around him like an arch or the billowing sail of a ship and would not consume him, and that a sweet fragrance filled the air; so an executioner was ordered to stab him with a dagger, and the blood that flowed put out the fire.
The Christians of Smyrna gathered what remained of him as a treasure, and remembered the day ever after. Whatever one makes of the miraculous details, the courage at the heart of the story is unmistakable.
That is the story in short. However, the Martyrdom of Polycarp tells it almost hour by hour, so let’s have a look at it step by step.
The Letter of the Church of Smyrna
The Martyrdom of Polycarp is a letter. The church of Smyrna sent it to the church of Philomelium in Phrygia, which had asked what really happened, and it was written partly by eyewitnesses. By the way, Philomelium is today’s Akşehir in Konya province, the town of Nasreddin Hodja, whose funny stories every child in Turkey knows.
Eusebius quoted a large part of it in his Church History in the 4th century, and it also survives in several Greek manuscripts and one Latin manuscript. You can read the whole text in the old English translation of the Martyrdom of Polycarp.
Persecution in Smyrna
The storm began in the stadium of Smyrna during public games. Several Christians, some of them from Philadelphia, were whipped and thrown to the wild beasts, and the letter says that none of them made a cry or a groan. You can read the wider background in my article on the persecution of early Christians in Asia Minor.
A young man called Germanicus was the bravest of them. When the proconsul begged him to have pity on his youth, he pulled the wild beast toward himself. The crowd shouted: “Away with the Atheists; let Polycarp be sought out!” For the people of Smyrna, Christians were atheists, because they refused to worship the gods of the city and the emperor.
Polycarp’s first wish was to stay in the city but his friends persuaded him to leave. He went with a few companions to a small farm nearby Smyrna and prayed there night and day for everybody and for the churches all over the world. Three days before his arrest, while praying, he saw his pillow on fire. He turned to his friends and said: “I must be burnt alive.”
Arrest of Polycarp at the Farm
Search went on, and Polycarp moved to another farm. His hunters seized two young slaves at the first farm, and one of them confessed under torture. The police captain who led the hunt had a name that the letter finds very fitting: Herod.
On the Friday at supper time, the police and the horsemen went out with the boy, armed as if they were chasing a robber. Late in the evening they found Polycarp lying in an upper room of a small house. He could still have escaped, but he refused, saying: “The will of God be done.”
He came down, talked with them and ordered food and drink to be set before them, as much as they wanted. He asked only for one hour to pray. Then he stood and prayed for two hours, remembering everybody he had ever met, small and great, and the whole Church throughout the world. Many of the men were sorry that they had come for such a godly old man.
I like this moment very much. They came to arrest a dangerous atheist, they found a quiet old man who fed them and prayed for the whole world. When he finished, they set him on a donkey and brought him into the city. It was the day of the great Sabbath.
Polycarp Brought to the Stadium
On the road, Herod the police captain and his father Nicetes took him into their carriage. What harm was there, they asked, in saying “Lord Caesar” and offering a sacrifice, and so saving his life? At first he gave no answer. Then he told them that he would not do what they advised.
Their words turned bitter, and they pushed him out from the carriage so roughly that he hurt his leg. Polycarp walked on to the stadium as if nothing had happened. As he was entering, the letter says, a voice came from heaven: “Be strong, and show yourself a man, O Polycarp!”
Trial of Polycarp in the Stadium
The proconsul of Asia was Statius Quadratus. He asked the old man if he was Polycarp, and then he tried to save him: “Have respect to your old age.”
Then he offered him a simple way out: “Swear by the fortune of Caesar; repent, and say, Away with the Atheists.” Polycarp looked with a stern face at the whole crowd in the stadium. He waved his hand toward them, groaned, looked up to heaven and said: “Away with the Atheists.”
These were the same words, but now they pointed at the crowd. In his eyes, the real atheists were the people shouting in the stadium, not the Christians. The proconsul pressed him again: “Swear, and I will set you at liberty, reproach Christ.” The answer of Polycarp is the most famous sentence of the whole story.
“Eighty-Six Years I Have Served Him”: Polycarp’s Famous Reply
The words history remembers are the ones he is said to have spoken when the proconsul told him to curse Christ. The old bishop answered: “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” In a single sentence, an old man facing the fire summed up a lifetime of faith. I have stood with guests in İzmir and watched those words land, and there is always a silence afterwards.
Polycarp did not stop there. When the proconsul insisted on the fortune of Caesar, he said: “Hear me declare with boldness, I am a Christian.” He even offered to explain his faith if the governor would give him a day and listen.
Death of Saint Polycarp in the Stadium
Wild Beasts or Fire
Then came the threats. “I have wild beasts at hand,” said the proconsul. “Call for them,” answered Polycarp. The proconsul threatened him with fire, and Polycarp replied: “You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour, and after a little is extinguished, but are ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment.”
The astonished proconsul sent his herald into the middle of the stadium to announce three times: “Polycarp has confessed that he is a Christian.” The crowd answered with fury: “This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, and the overthrower of our gods.”
They asked Philip the Asiarch to let a lion loose on Polycarp. Philip refused, because the animal games were already over. So the whole crowd shouted that Polycarp should be burned alive, and the vision of the burning pillow came true.
Polycarp on the Pyre
Everything happened very fast. People ran to the workshops and the baths and came back with wood. Polycarp took off his outer clothes and he also tried to take off his sandals too, a thing he was not used to doing, because the faithful always hurried to do it for him, each hoping to touch him.
They were about to nail him to the stake when he stopped them: “Leave me as I am.” The One who gave him strength to bear the fire, he said, would also keep him still in it without nails. So they only tied him, with his hands behind his back, like a ram chosen from a great flock for a sacrifice.
Polycarp looked up to heaven and prayed one last time. He thanked God for counting him worthy of this day and this hour, to have a share among the martyrs in the cup of Christ. When he said “Amen”, the men lit the fire. Then came the arch of flame that I told above, and the witnesses add one more picture: he looked “not like flesh which is burnt, but as bread that is baked, or as gold and silver glowing in a furnace.”
I will be honest with you. I do not know how much of these wonders to take literally. The Martyrdom is a document of faith, written by people who loved Polycarp. However, the main line of the story is solid: a calm old bishop, his refusal to deny Christ, his long prayer and his death by fire and dagger.
After the Martyrdom of Polycarp
Even his dead body worried his enemies. Nicetes, the father of the police captain, asked the governor not to give the body to the Christians, “lest, forsaking Him that was crucified, they begin to worship this one.” So a centurion put the body in middle of the fire and burned it.
The bones that the Christians took from the fire became the center of a yearly meeting on the birthday of his martyrdom. Historians see here one of the earliest records of Christians honoring the relics of a saint and keeping the day of his death. The churches still keep his feast on 23 February.
Polycarp was the twelfth martyr of that persecution in Smyrna, counting the Christians from Philadelphia. Yet he is the one everybody remembered, and the letter says that even the pagans spoke of him everywhere. I tell the stories of other martyrs of this region in my article on the martyrs and important figures of the Seven Churches.
Polycarp and the Date of Easter
There is one more episode worth knowing, because it connects to another figure from this region. Around the year 154, Polycarp traveled all the way to Rome to discuss with the bishop there, Anicetus, a disagreement over the correct date to celebrate Easter (the churches of Asia keeping one tradition, Rome another). The two men could not agree, but they parted as friends, in peace and mutual respect.
Irenaeus adds one more detail in letter to a later bishop of Rome. Anicetus let Polycarp celebrate the Eucharist in his own church, as a mark of respect. For me, this is one of the small beautiful moments of early Christian history. In Turkish I would say: Anlaşamadık ama dost kaldık. We did not agree, but we stayed friends.
Decades later, that same Asian tradition would be defended by Polycrates of Ephesus, and if you’d like, you can read about him in my separate article on Polycrates of Ephesus. It’s a reminder that these early Christians were real people, working out hard questions together.
Where Can You Visit Saint Polycarp’s Smyrna Today?
İzmir wears its modern face proudly, but Polycarp’s city is still there to be found. The Church of Saint Polycarp, in the heart of İzmir near Konak, is the oldest church in the city and is dedicated to him, a peaceful, beautifully painted refuge from the busy streets.
Nearby lie the excavated remains of the Agora of Smyrna, the marble heart of the ancient city Polycarp knew. And rising above it all is Kadifekale, the hilltop citadel on the slopes of which the ancient stadium once stood, where tradition places his martyrdom. I weave all of these together when I guide in İzmir, so that the city’s Christian story comes alive street by street.
The church was built in 1625, at the request of the French king Louis XIII, and it has been repaired and rebuilt several times since. Raymond Charles Péré, a French architect, painted its walls with scenes from the life of the saint. Please keep it in mind that it is a working Catholic church, so dress modestly and stay quiet during a mass.
Nothing of the ancient stadium can be seen today. It lay in a long hollow west of the castle of Kadifekale, and the houses of the city cover it completely now. When you look down over İzmir from the castle walls, you are looking toward the place where the crowd once shouted for Polycarp. My list of the Christian sites in İzmir and the Smyrna region covers the other sites of the city.
Why Saint Polycarp Matters
Polycarp matters because he is a bridge and a witness. He links us, through John, to the apostles and to Christ; he shows us, through his letter and his death, what the faith of the very early Church actually looked like; and he reminds us that the great events of Christian history did not happen somewhere far away: they happened here, in the cities of this coast that I am lucky enough to call home. That, for me, is the heart of every pilgrimage.
Every generation that reads the Martyrdom of Polycarp meets the same question: could I do that, if it came to it? The honest answer, for most of us, is I do not know. But this story, nearly nineteen centuries old, shows us one man who could. That is, in the end, what a martyr is: someone who shows the rest of us that it is possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Saint Polycarp?
A disciple of the Apostle John and bishop of Smyrna (modern İzmir), one of the Apostolic Fathers, martyred around 155 AD for refusing to renounce Christ.
How did Saint Polycarp die?
He was condemned to be burned at the stake in the stadium of Smyrna; according to the early account, when the fire did not consume him he was stabbed, and the faithful gathered his remains.
Why was Polycarp martyred?
During a persecution in Smyrna, the crowd in the stadium demanded his arrest. Before the proconsul he refused to swear by the fortune of Caesar and to curse Christ, and he openly declared that he was a Christian. The crowd then asked for him to be burned alive.
Was Polycarp really a disciple of the Apostle John?
By the strong tradition of the early Church, yes: John is said to have appointed him bishop of Smyrna, and the chain of memory was preserved through Polycarp’s own pupil, Irenaeus.
Who wrote the Martyrdom of Polycarp?
The church of Smyrna wrote it as a letter to the church of Philomelium, today’s Akşehir. The writer named at the end is Evarestus. Parts of it come from eyewitnesses, and Eusebius later quoted a large part of it in his Church History.
Is Polycarp connected to the Seven Churches of Revelation?
Yes, he was bishop of Smyrna, the second of the Seven Churches, whose letter urges the faithful to “be faithful unto death.”
Where can you visit sites linked to Saint Polycarp?
In İzmir: the Church of Saint Polycarp near Konak, the Agora of Smyrna, and the hill of Kadifekale where his martyrdom is traditionally placed.
Is Polycarp the same as Polycrates of Ephesus?
No, they are two different early bishops. Polycarp led Smyrna and was martyred around 155 AD; Polycrates of Ephesus led that city around 190 AD and championed the Asian date of Easter.
Hire Biblical Tour Guide in İzmir
My day guiding covers İzmir, Ephesus and Pamukkale, so the Church of Saint Polycarp, the Agora of Smyrna and Kadifekale fit easily into one day in İzmir. You can check my guiding rates and guiding areas, or write to me to hire me as your licensed guide.
The story of Saint Polycarp turns the busy streets of İzmir back into ancient Smyrna, and bringing that to life is exactly what I love to do. I’m a nationally licensed Turkish guide based in Kuşadası, beside Ephesus, and I’d be honored to lead you through the Christian heritage of İzmir and the Seven Churches of Revelation. Reach me through toursaroundturkey.com or WhatsApp to begin planning your pilgrimage. Görüşmek üzere! See you soon, Hasan Gülday.
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