Martyrdom of Polycarp | September 15, 2004

The Martyrdom of Polycarp is the first document to mention an annual, anniversary commemoration at the tomb of a martyr (18:3), a custom which became universal in the church in the third century. Each local church kept a list of such dates and these lists became the basis of early church calendars of fixed feasts. At first these observances consisted of a memorial banquet, customary in Roman funerary rites. By the fourth century they began to be formalized by church authorities into a vigil service followed by celebration of the Eucharist analogous to the Easter rites.