| Honorific Prefix: | Saint |
| Dionysius of Corinth | |
| Birth Date: | early to mid 2nd century AD |
| Feast Day: | April 8 |
| Venerated In: | Catholic Church |
| Death Place: | Corinth, Greece |
| Titles: | Bishop and Confessor |
Dionysius of Corinth, (Greek: Διονύσιος ό Κορίνθιος) also known as Saint Dionysius, was the bishop of Corinth circa AD 171. His feast day is commemorated on April 8.
The date is established by the fact that he wrote to Pope Soter.[1] Eusebius in his Chronicle placed his "floruit" in the eleventh year of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (171). When Hegesippus was at Corinth in the time of Pope Anicetus, Primus was bishop (about 150–5), while Bacchylus was Bishop of Corinth at the time of the Paschal controversy (about 190–8). Dionysius is only known to us through Eusebius. Eusebius knew a collection of seven of the Catholic Letters to the Churches of Dionysius, together with a letter to him from Pinytus, Bishop of Knossos, and a private letter of spiritual advice to a lady named Chrysophora.[2]
But the most important letter is the seventh one, addressed to the Romans, and the only one from which extracts have been preserved. Pope Soter had sent alms and a letter to the Corinthians, and in response Dionysius wrote:
For this has been your custom from the beginning, to do good to all the brethren in many ways, and to send alms to many Churches in different cities, now relieving the poverty of those who asked aid, now assisting the brethren in the mines by the alms you send, Romans keeping up the traditional custom of Romans, which your blessed bishop, Soter, has not only maintained, but has even increased, by affording to the brethren the abundance which he has supplied, and by comforting with blessed words the brethren who came to him, as a father his children.[3] Again:
You also by this instruction have mingled together the Romans and Corinthians who are the planting of Peter and Paul. For they both came to our Corinth and planted us, and taught alike; and alike going to Italy and teaching there, were martyred at the same time. Again:
Today we have kept the holy Lord's day, on which we have read your letter, which we shall ever possess to read and to be admonished, even as the former one written to us through Clement.