Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch, in Syria. Benedict XVI dates his episcopate from 70 to 107; the Catholic Encyclopedia places his death in Rome during the reign of Trajan, between 98 and 117. On the journey to his martyrdom in Rome he strengthened the Christians of the cities where he stopped. From Smyrna he wrote to the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles and Rome; from Troas he wrote to Philadelphia, to Smyrna and to its bishop, St. Polycarp.
The seven letters are short enough to read in an evening. In them he calls the Eucharist "the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ" and greets the church of Rome as the one that "presides over love." To the Smyrnaeans he wrote: "Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." Benedict XVI notes that he was the first person in Christian literature to give the Church that name, and calls him the "Doctor of Unity."
He was put to death in Rome, thrown to wild animals. Benedict XVI places this in the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Colosseum; the Catholic Encyclopedia cautions that the evidence for the place is far from decisive. By a tradition of long veneration his remains came to rest in Rome at San Clemente, where the Holy See's Jubilee 2025 guide says relics of St. Ignatius are preserved together with those of Pope St. Clement and St. Cyril. The basilica's own pages that we consulted do not describe them, so ask on site where they are kept.
