Andronicus of Pannonia

The holy apostle Andronicus, one of the Seventy, was bishop of Pannonia and is mentioned by the holy apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. He is commemorated on 4 January, in the synaxis of the Seventy, on 17 May and on 30 July.

In the epistles of Paul

In the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 16, Paul greets Andronicus and Junia, saying they are his kinsmen and fellow prisoners, well known among the apostles and in Christ before him. From this it is seen that Andronicus received the faith before Paul, before Paul’s conversion on the Damascus road. Junia is usually thought to be his wife, but she may have been a sister, or a daughter or another close relation of Paul.

According to tradition

According to the tradition of the Orthodox Church, Andronicus was made bishop of Pannonia, at Sirmium, but he did not stay in one place, and preached the Gospel throughout Pannonia, with Junia, and in other lands. With her he brought many to the faith, pulled down many pagan temples, built churches and worked miracles, casting demons out of people and healing diseases. Some sources say they received a martyr’s death, others that they died in peace, after many labours and many hardships from the pagans. Their relics are said, in an old account, to have been found in the Eugenius quarter of Constantinople, in the time of the emperor Arcadius, but this report is not regarded as certain. The Catholic archbishopric of Moravia was founded in the ninth century by Pope Nicholas I as a revival of the see founded by Andronicus.