The deputy of the first Antiochian bishop Evodius, the famous Antiochian hieromartyr St. Ignatius the God-Bearer suffered a martyr's death during the time of Emperor Trajan (98-117 AD).
He was torn apart by wild beasts in the Roman Circus Maximus. Like wheat, he was ground by the teeth of wild beasts and became white bread for God, as he himself had previously said about himself. Faithful Christians collected his gnawed bones with reverence and returned them to his city, where "the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts 11:26). This happened in 107.
Before the Arab Muslims occupied Antioch in 637, his holy relics were returned to Rome, where they rest in the church of "St. Clement". The Holy Church commemorates these two transfers of St. Ignatius' relics on this day.