St. Irenaeus of Lyons(c.130-200)
This image is taken from Encyclop�dia Britannica.

     The precise year of the birth of Irenaeus is unknown although it is presumed that this father of the Catholic Church was born at Smyrna in the year 130 AD.   In his youth, Irenaeus was strongly influenced by St. Polycarp*, whose teachings he treasured "not on paper but in my heart, for the things we learnt in childhood are part of our soul." Irenaeus studied in Rome and then became a priest of Lyons, the principal bishopric of Gaul. During a sudden persecution, which caused the imprisonment of many of its members, the church of Lyons sent Irenaeus to Rome with a letter for the pope. This letter urged leniency towards the Montanists** in Phrygia, a sect with whom Irenaeus had little sympathy.

     Irenaeus returned to Lyons in 178 AD and was appointed bishop after Pothinus had been killed in the persecution. It is believed that Irenaeus himself ended his life as a martyr, but the evidence in support of this is inconclusive.

     During Irenaeus' service to the church he wrote many articles, his chief treatises, Adversus Haereses and Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching, warned of the dangers of Gnosticism.  His principal points stressed the truth of monotheism

Irenaeus died in Lyons in 202 AD. His feast day is celebrated in the West on June 28 and in the East on August 23. He was buried in the crypt of the church of St. John, where his shrine remained until it was destroyed by Calvinists in 1562.

  Feast Day February 23.

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Montanism was an apocalyptic and prophetic movement within Christianity that started around the late second century. Called the "Phrygian heresy", it was named after its first prophet Montanus, who was accompanied by prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximimilla. Montanists followed a very strict discipline, which sometimes included seeking martyrdom. They believed that they were under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. Although they treasured the Gospel of John, Montanism tended to undermine traditional authorities such as Holy Scripture and the office of the bishop. Because of this, a controversy broke out, and a series of synods was held. The movement spread far beyond Asia Minor, reaching Rome where Bishop Eleutherus excommunicated the Montanists. Tertullian became one of its most famous converts around 207-208. Most of the Montanist writings have been destroyed.

One of the so-called philosophies in the first ages of Christianity, who claimed a true philosophical interpretation of the Christian religion. Their system combined Oriental theology and Greek philosophy with the doctrines of Christianity. They held that all natures, intelligible, intellectual, and material, are derived from the Deity by successive emanations, which they called Eons.  Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

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