Apelles of Smyrna

Saint Apelles the Apostle is numbered among the seventy apostles of the Lord. Saint Paul mentions him in the Epistle to the Romans and, according to tradition, he was bishop of Heraclea. The Church commemorates him on 31 October and, together with the others of the seventy, on 4 January.

In the New Testament

Saint Paul writes, in the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans (16:10), that Apelles, approved in Christ, should be greeted. This is the only written witness about him. The word of Scripture shows a man whose faith had been put to the test and found pure.

According to tradition

According to tradition, Apelles is one of the seventy disciples. Together with the apostles Urban, Stachys, Ampliatus, Narcissus and Aristobulus, mentioned by Saint Paul in the same chapter, he is said to have helped Saint Andrew the First-⁠called in spreading the Gospel. He was bishop in Heraclea in Thrace, according to some sources also in Smyrna. Some place the see at Heraclea in the region of Trachis.

Apart from these reports, no secure accounts of his life have been preserved, nor any writings that bear his name.

Veneration

The Orthodox Church commemorates him on 4 January, in the Synaxis of the seventy apostles, on 31 October and, together with Lucius of Cyrene and Clement of Sardis, on 10 September. His commemoration of 31 October is also kept by the Catholic Church.