1. Life-action
The priest Pionius was an arduous defender of Christianity, who did no hesitate to declare and advertise his faith even in front of the public of Smyrna and the city’s notables. During the persecution of Decius, on the 23rd of February in 250 AD, the day when the memory of Saint Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna who had met his martyrdom in 156 AD, was celebrated, Pionius was arrested in Smyrna. He was imprisoned and tortured, but during the entirety of his incarceration he continued preaching and strengthening the faith of the weaker ones. Finally he died on the pyre.
His memory is celebrated by the Eastern Church on March 11th and by the Western Church on February 1st.1 The main source on the life and martyrdom of Pionius is the martyr text of Pionius.2 Another text, the one referring to the martyrdom of Polycarp, attributed to Pionius, most probably belongs to the early 5th c.
1. Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 4.15.46-47.
2. Musurillo, H. (ed.) The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford Εarly Christian Τexts), Oxford 1972, p. 137-167.