APOLLINARIS, Bishop of Ravenna, Saint. - He was the first to occupy the episcopal see of Ravenna; the presence of his 11th successor at the Council of Sardica in 342 suggests that he lived toward the end of the 2nd century. He is venerated as a martyr by all hagiographic sources later than the 7th century; but Peter Chrysologus (Serm. 128: PL 52, 552), while affirming him to be a martyr, indeed the only martyr of the Church of Ravenna, acknowledges that tradition venerates him only as a confessor: a tradition, however, which, as Peter himself notes, knows of persecutions and tortures endured by him, through which fundebat saepe sanguinem suum, and in consequence of which he succumbed.
It is therefore not a matter of mere moral martyrdom, to which the eulogistic writings of the time so often appeal, but of a simple translation into post-Constantinian language of the ancient term confessor, more accurate in any case than for other "martyrs" who died in peacetime, such as St. Felix of Nola. It was later Roman sources (Registrum Greg., V, 11; VIII, 36) that would more explicitly acknowledge A. as a martyr, while in the Ravennate texts only the Passio would take up the theme again. Buried within his own Church, as Chrysologus likewise reports, he was pointed out to the piety of the faithful by a modest aedicula situated in the burial area of Classe, not far from the well-known cemetery of the Basilica Probi, until the middle of the 6th century.
Indeed the Passio Sancti Apollinaris (BHL 623), to which great antiquity and credibility were already attributed (it was held to be the work of his immediate successor), asserts that it was St. Peter himself who sent him to Ravenna. Criticism has however demonstrated that the writing is no older than the 7th century and reflects the polemical motives of the struggle for autocephaly (666). It seems, nevertheless, that relations between A. and Peter were already supposed somewhat earlier by the Liber Pontificalis of Rome itself (ed. Duchesne, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1886, p. 323). A similar appeal to the Apostle in a polemic of Chrysologus (Serm. 175) against the Milanese jurisdiction, and the fact that the proto-bishops of Arles and Aquileia as well (erected as metropolises at the time of the Milanese Ranni, like Ravenna) were said to be disciples of St. Peter, would suggest that the legend originated from anti-Milanese aims far older than 666 and from an environment other than Ravenna.
The usual date of St. A., celebrated at Ravenna with great solemnity (Reg. Greg., V, 11), is recorded by the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 23 July; it does not appear in the Leonine, Gelasian Regin. 316 and Gregorian Pad. 42 Sacramentaries (the Hadrianic redaction knows a Statio ad S. Apollinarem, but for the 5th Thursday of Lent); it is listed by the lectionary of Würzburg, which already dedicates to it the pericope of polemical flavor Lk. 22, 24-30, and by the post-Carolingian liturgical books. His cult, very widespread in the territory subject to the Byzantines, extended also into Lombardy, France and above all the Rhineland. At Rome Pope Symmachus (498-514) dedicated an oratory to him in the Rotunda of St. Andrew (Lib. Pont., ed. Duchesne, I, p. 261), and Honorius (635-38) a basilica at the Vatican, establishing at the same time that a procession should set out from it every Saturday for St. Peter's (Lib. Pont., ed. Duchesne, I, 323). The basilica of Campo Marzio appears only in the 8th century, in the biography of Pope Hadrian and in the Itinerarium of Einsiedeln.
The great basilica of Classe, center of so vast a diffusion of the cult, was begun by Bishop Ursicinus and consecrated by Maximian on 9 May 549.
It did not, however, rise over the tomb of the Saint. Agnellus relates (Lib. Pont., XXXVIII, 85-87) that it was Archbishop Maurus who brought the sacred body into the temple; but he is contradicted by an inscription (CIL, XI, 295, certainly authentic although long disputed), now on the right wall of the church, but placed by Maximian on the primitive aedicula to mark the accomplished translation, by which the basilica itself was consecrated. So singular an eccentricity of the construction with respect to the relics is perhaps due to the intention of erecting it on high dunes to save it from the waters. Preceded by a quadriportico of different age, the basilica (55 × 30 m) has three naves, with a prothesis and diaconicon, supported by 24 admirable columns of imezio. The different levels on which these rest, as well as the various types of masonry in the central nave, testify to the work of tormented restorations. Only the presbytery, reached by the broad stairway of 1723, preserves in its mosaics all its ancient splendor. In the highest part of the apse's conch the Transfiguration of Christ is symbolized; in the lower register rises majestically the figure of St. A. in the attitude of an orant with six sheep on either side. Below, on one side are represented the sacrifices of Abel, Melchizedek and Abraham, and on the other the delivery by Constantine IV of the privileges to the Church of Ravenna. Between the windows are depicted four archbishops of Ravenna. The triumphal arch has at its center Christ between the symbols of the evangelists and the apostles represented by sheep coming forth from Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In other panels below are figured two palms, two archangels, Michael and Gabriel, and the evangelists Matthew and Luke.
The location of the Saint's relics was the subject in the late Middle Ages of impassioned disputes. To elude the threats of marauders infesting the undefended coastline, in the 9th century they had been carefully hidden; but where? A Historia translationis Sancti Apollinaris (Acta SS. Iulii, V, Paris 1868, p. 374), written in the 12th century by monks of S. Apollinare Nuovo, related that Bishop John (VII?, 850-78) had transported them into the city, into the ancient palatine basilica of Theodoric, reconciled to Catholic worship in the 6th century under the name of S. Martino in Ciel d'Oro.
The monks of Classe contested the fact, opposing to it the discovery of the body, which occurred instead at Classe in 1173, and is related by a Tractatus de inventione Sancti Apollinaris (Rerum Ital. Script., I, 2, p. 538). The polemic lasted quite vigorously. Today it is recognized that for some time the relics really were in S. Martino, prompting from at least the 9th century a third name of S. Apollinaris in Novo (there already existed in the city S. Apollinaris in Vclo), in an annular crypt dug for the purpose and recently identified; but from there they soon returned to Classe, where they were found again in 1173. The basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo is also three-aisled (42 × 21 m), still covered with Theodorican and Byzantine mosaics. Scenes from the life and passion of Christ above, prophets and apostles below, belong to the first period; the rows of confessors and virgins offering their crowns to Christ belong to the second.
Bibliography4 works
Studies. - More recent and with bibliography: F. Lanzoni, pp. 724-39; H. Delehaye, L'hagiographie ancienne de Ravenne, in Anal. Bollardiana, 47 (1929), pp. 1-30; E. Will, St. Apollinaire de Ravenne, Strasbourg 1936; G. Lucchesi, Note agiografiche sui primi vescovi di Ravenna, Faenza 1941.
Giovanni Lucchesi