Caesar of Dyrrhachium


Caesar of Dyrrhachium is numbered among the Seventy Disciples, and was bishop of Dyrrhachium, a city of Epirus in modern Albania.

Life

Caesar was one of the Seventy Disciples, who may also be known in traditions from Eastern Christianity as the seventy apostles . The apostles were early emissaries of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. The number of those disciples varies between either 70 or 72 depending on the manuscript.
Caesar was ordained by Paul the Apostle as the first bishop of Dyrrhachium. Paul's letter to the Philippians, Caesar is mentioned in the verse 4:22.

Legacy

The Church remembers St. Caesar on March 30 with Apostles Sosthenes, Apollos, Cephas, and Epaphroditus and on December 8 with the same apostles and Onesiphorus. He was the first bishop of Dyrrhachium. His position as bishop was succeeded by Saint Astius, an Albanian martyr who has a church dedicated to him in Durres.