ACOLIUS. – Bishop of Thessalonica, he baptized the emperor Theodosius before the latter undertook the Gothic War (380); he died in 383. On the occasion of his death, St Ambrose wrote a letter to the Church of Thessalonica, in which he compares A. to the prophet Elisha, because through his prayers he had driven the Goths back from Macedonia. He was among those present at the Council of Constantinople in 381 and at that of Rome in 382. During
this period he was also in contact with Pope Damasus. (Cf. A. Fliche and V. Martin, Storia della Chiesa, Italian ed., III, Turin [1940], pp. 293, 297, 303, 485, 490).