Polycarp

Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna. The high regard in which he was held is explained by the fact that he had been a disciple of the Apostles. Irenaeus (Eusebius, Hist. eccles. 5, 20, 5) records that Polycarp sat at the feet of St. John, furthermore that he was appointed to the see of Smyrna by the Apostles (Adv. Haer. 3, 3, 4). It was to him as Bishop of Smyrna that St. Ignatius addressed one of his letters. The discussions which Polycarp and Pope Anicetus carried on in Rome in the year 155, relative to various ecclesiastical matters of moment, particularly the settlement of a date for the celebration of Easter, give added proof of the esteem in which Polycarp was held.

Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 1, The Beginnings of Patristic Literature (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986), 76–77.