A disciple of Saint Paul greeted by name in Romans 16:11, later remembered by tradition as a first-century bishop of Patras.

Saint Herodion is the Christian greeted by Saint Paul as “my kinsman” in Romans 16:11, one of the earliest named believers in the Roman church known personally to the apostle. Later ecclesiastical tradition, reflected in Eastern lists of the Seventy Disciples, identifies him with a first-century bishop who served the church at Patras in Greece, though this later identification rests on tradition rather than the biblical text itself.

Quick Facts

• Era: First century, Rome and Patras, Greece
• Venerated as: Bishop and pastor
• Scriptural reference: Romans 16:11

Who Was Saint Herodion?

Paul calls Herodion his kinsman in the closing greetings of the Letter to the Romans, a term that most scholars read as marking a fellow Jew rather than a literal blood relative, but which in either sense signals genuine personal closeness. Eastern Christian tradition later placed him among the Seventy Disciples sent out by Christ and identified him as a bishop of Patras, on the Gulf of Corinth.

Historical Setting

The mid-first-century church at Rome, still forming out of Jewish and Gentile converts together, depended on individuals like Herodion who carried personal credibility with the apostle himself. If the later tradition of his episcopate at Patras is accurate, his ministry would have extended the apostolic mission into mainland Greece within a generation of the Resurrection.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Herodion

He is remembered first for his direct scriptural attestation and second for the pastoral role tradition assigned him, a bishop shepherding a Greek congregation in the earliest and most fragile years of the Church’s expansion beyond Palestine and Rome.

Canonization and Feast Day

Paul’s own letter, not any later ecclesiastical procedure, is the foundation of Herodion’s recognition; ancient calendars of the apostles’ companions, especially in the Byzantine tradition, simply preserved what Scripture had already recorded.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Herodion’s memory shows how personal loyalty to an apostle could grow, in tradition, into decades of pastoral responsibility for a whole church. It is a reminder that being known and trusted by name is often where a larger vocation begins.

A Prayer to Saint Herodion

Saint Herodion, kinsman and companion of the apostle Paul, intercede for all who are called from a place of personal trust into a wider service of the Church. Amen.

Sources

• Romans 16:11
• Byzantine tradition on the Seventy Disciples
• Roman Martyrology