Evangelism Resources and HiVu Antique Photos Galleries
| Next | Previous | Contact Ron | Ron's Blog | Index | Tellout Home |
Sunday and Martyrdom
The custom of observing Easter was unknown in the west, when Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in A.D. 154 and tried to persuade the Bishop of Rome that it was a custom handed down by the Apostles. A little later, we find Easter being observed in Alexandria and in Rome on the Sunday following the Jewish Passover. It was observed on Sunday because that day of the week was the Resurrection day, and it seemed wrong that the yearly festival should be on any other day but Sunday. So Easter, Christianity's oldest and greatest festival, came to be fixed for the first Sunday after the spring full moon, with the previous Friday (now called Good Friday) as the fast commemorating the Crucifixion.1
As early as A.D. 156, a festival of a different kind was added to the Christian Year, a Saint's Day. In that year, the Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp, (Icon shown at right) had been burned to death by the Roman authorities for refusing to deny Christ saying: "Eighty-six years I have served him. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" His friends, writing an account of Polycarp's martyrdom, added these words about his grave: "There we shall gather, with joy and gladness, to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom."1
Why fast? What is so special about martyrdom?
1"The First Advance - Church History 1: AD 29-500" by John Foster.
"Sunday and martyrdom and their roots in the Early Church."
| ^Top Page | Next | Previous |