Andeolus

Who was Andeolus?

Andeolus or Andéol was born in Smyrna in the 2nd century. A subdeacon, he was sent by Polycarp, along with Benignus, to evangelize southern Gaul. He went to the Vivarais. Septimius Severus, passing through that region, had him put to death; his head was stabbed with a gladius on May 1, 208, at Bergoiata, a Gallic settlement on a rocky peak over the Rhône River which would be later known as Bourg-Saint-Andéol. The body, thrown into the Rhone, was later found and placed in a sarcophagus by a rich Roman woman, Anycia or Amycia Eucheria Tullia, daughter of senator Eucherius Valerianus. His sarcophagus was rediscovered in 1865 during excavations in the St. Polycarp chapel of the eleventh-century church in Bourg-Saint-Andéol.