Acatius

The name Acatius (also rendered Acacius, Achatius, or Agathius, from the Greek Akakios, meaning 'innocent' or 'not evil') belongs to several distinct figures in early Christian history and hagiography, and the surviving sources do not permit a single, securely identified biography under this spelling alone. Greek and Latin martyrologies, synaxaria, and church historians of late antiquity record bishops, a patriarch, and multiple martyrs who share the name. Because these persons lived in different centuries and regions—from Cappadocia and Byzantium to Mesopotamia and Armenia—and because later medieval legend sometimes fused their cults, precise personal data such as a birth year cannot be verified for an undifferentiated Acatius. What follows summarizes the principal, better-attested bearers of the name as they appear in reliable historical and liturgical tradition.

The most securely documented charitable bishop of this name is Acacius of Amida, who occupied the see of Amida (modern Diyarbakır on the Tigris, in Roman Mesopotamia) in the early fifth century. The church historian Socrates Scholasticus relates that after a Roman–Persian war, some seven thousand Persian captives were held in Amida in destitution. Acacius melted down the church's gold and silver vessels, including those used in the liturgy, ransomed the prisoners, fed them, and sent them home to the Sasanian king. The act is said to have moved the Persian court and contributed to a cessation of hostilities. This episode, which belongs to the 420s, is the chief reason for his later liturgical commemoration. The Roman Martyrology assigns him 9 April. His year of birth is unknown; he died in the first half of the fifth century. He was neither pope nor patriarch of a patriarchal see.

A different and more legendary figure is the soldier-martyr known as Agathius, Acacius, or Achatius of Byzantium, sometimes called of Cappadocia. Tradition presents him as a centurion from Cappadocia serving in the Roman army, arrested for confessing Christianity during the persecutions of the early fourth century, tortured at Perinthus (Heraclea) and Byzantium, and beheaded. His relics were later associated with Squillace in Calabria. Eastern calendars often keep his memory on 7 May and Western ones on 8 May. In German-speaking lands a saint Achatius was numbered among the Fourteen Holy Helpers and invoked against headache; medieval iconography sometimes shows him as a knight with a crown of thorns. Historians treat the soldier's passion as largely legendary, and it is frequently confused with another late legend of ten thousand martyrs on Mount Ararat under a leader named Acacius or Achatius, commemorated in some calendars on 22 June. Neither birth year nor a historically verified place of burial can be established for these martyr traditions.

Two further fifth-century churchmen named Acacius must be distinguished from the foregoing. Acacius of Melitene, bishop of Melitene in Armenia Minor, was an ally of Cyril of Alexandria at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and a correspondent in the Christological controversies of that decade; he is commemorated in some Eastern calendars, often on 17 April. Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople from the early 470s until his death in 489, was a major political prelate who issued the Henotikon in an attempt to reconcile Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian parties; the resulting Acacian schism divided Rome and Constantinople until 519. He is not venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. Still other obscure martyrs and monks named Acacius appear in the synaxaria, including a hermit associated with Sinai. None of these men can be shown to have been Bishop of Rome. Marriage, children, and membership in a later religious order are not documented for the bishops and martyrs in question; fifth-century episcopal celibacy practice varied and should not be assumed without evidence.

Because the designation Acatius does not uniquely identify one historical person, claims of a single feast day, a single patronage, or a formal canonization by a named pope cannot be verified. Cults arose by popular acclamation and local calendars long before the centralized processes of later centuries. Modern historical writing therefore keeps the figures separate, prefers the testimony of Socrates Scholasticus, the acts of the Council of Ephesus, and the papal correspondence of the Acacian schism over later legendary passions, and leaves birth dates, exact birthplaces, and many personal details blank where the ancient sources are silent.