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When Saint Peter, setting out
for Rome, left Antioch after seven years as its spiritual Head, he took
with him several of the faithful of that city, among them Apollinaris, a
disciple of Jesus Christ. He consecrated him bishop a few years later and
sent him to Ravenna as its first bishop.
His first miracle was on behalf of the blind son of a soldier who gave him
hospitality when he first arrived in the city of Ravenna. When the apostle
told him of the God he had come to preach and invited him to abandon the
cult of idols, the soldier replied: “Stranger, if the God you preach is as
powerful as you say, beg Him to give sight to my son, and I will believe
in Him.” The Saint had the child brought and made the sign of the cross on
his eyes as he prayed. The miracle was instantaneous, to the great
amazement of all, and news of it spread rapidly. A day or so later, a
military tribune sent for him to cure his wife from a long illness, which
again he did. The house of the tribune became a center of apostolic
action, and several persons sent their children to the Saint to instruct
them there. Little by little a flourishing Christian assembly was formed,
and priests and deacons were ordained. The Saint lived in community with
the two priests and two deacons.
The idolatrous priests aroused the people against him, as we see the
enemies of Saint Paul do in the Acts of the Apostles. He was left
half-dead on the seashore, after being severely beaten, but was cared for
by the Christians and recovered rapidly. A young girl whom he cured after
having her father promise to allow her full liberty to follow Christ,
consecrated her virginity to God. It was after this that, in the time of
Vespasian, he was arrested and interrogated and again flogged, stretched
on the rack and plunged into boiling oil. Alive still, he was exiled to
Illyria, east of the Adriatic Sea.
He remained three years in that country, having survived a shipwreck with
only a few persons whom he converted. Then he evangelized the various
districts, with the aid of his converts. When an idol ceased to speak
during his sojourn in one of these regions, the pagans again beat him and
threw him and his companions on a ship which took them back to Italy. Soon
imprisoned, he escaped but was seized again and for the last time
subjected to a flogging. He died on July 23rd of the year 79. His body lay
first at Classis, four miles from Ravenna, and a church was built over his
tomb; later the relics were returned to Ravenna. Pope Honorius had a
church built to honor the name of Apollinaris in Rome, about the year 630.
From the beginning the Church has held his memory in high veneration.
source:
http://magnificat.ca/cal/engl/07-23.htm
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