Prochorus (deacon)

John the Evangelist with Prochorus

Prochorus (Latin form of the Greek: Πρόχορος (Prochoros)) was one of the Seven Deacons chosen to care for the poor of the Christian community in Jerusalem (Acts 6:5). According to later tradition he was also one of the Seventy Disciples sent out by Jesus in Luke 10.

Tradition calls Prochorus the nephew of Stephen the Protomartyr. St Prochorus accompanied the holy Apostle Peter, who ordained him to be the bishop in the city of Nicomedia.^[1] He is also thought to have been a companion of John the Apostle, who consecrated him bishop of Nicomedia in Bithynia. He was wrongly thought to have been the author of the apocryphal Acts of John,^[2] which is dated by present scholars to the end of the 2nd century.^[3] According to the late tradition he was the bishop of Antioch and ended his life as a martyr in Antioch in the 1st century.^[4][5]

Prochorus and St John depicted in a 1609 Armenian gospel manuscript

In Orthodox iconography he is always depicted as a scribe of John the Evangelist.^[6]

References

1. Feasts and Saints – OCA
2. Seven Deacons – Catholic Encyclopedia
3. Ehrman, Bart D. (2003). Lost scriptures : books that did not make it into the New Testament (Pbk. ed.). New York: Oxford Univ. Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-19-514182-5.
4. The Ecole Glossary
5. Martyrologium Romanum ad Novam Kalendarii
6. Ekkart Sauser. "Prochorus (deacon)". Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). cols. 0–0.

External links

• Prochorus – Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon
• Ekkart Sauser. "Prochorus (deacon)". Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). cols. 0–0.