When Ignatius became the bishop of Antioch around the year 70, he assumed leadership of a local Church that was, according to tradition, first led by St. Peter before his move to Rome.

Pope Leo XIV warned against the risk of “falling into a rut, a routine, a tendency to follow the same old pastoral plans ...

St. Ignatius of Antioch. ... Ignatius was an Apostolic Father of the Church, a disciple, ... In 117 he was sentenced to death by the Emperor Trajan and arrested in Antioch.

“It’s antiquity [ninth century] speaks to a papacy that has endured through the ages — from St. Peter who governed a church on the run trying to evangelize with the might of the Roman Empire ...