Apostles Jason and Sosipater of the Seventy

Jason and Sosipater were two of the Seventy whom the Lord sent forth, both named by the Apostle Paul in his letters. Jason had been Paul's host at Thessalonica during the second missionary journey (Acts 17:5–9) and had been arrested for sheltering the apostle when the mob raised by the local Jews came demanding their surrender. Sosipater is named at Romans 16:21 as a kinsman of Paul.

After the apostolic missions through Greece, the two together took ship for the island of Corfu, then a Roman outpost off the western coast of the Greek mainland, and there established the first Christian community on the island. They preached openly, converted many of the local pagans, and were eventually arrested by the local king Cercylinus. Held in prison with a small group of imprisoned brigands whom they catechized through the bars of their cells, they brought even the brigands to baptism — and these new converts were the first to be martyred when the king resumed examinations.

Jason and Sosipater were eventually spared violent death by a sudden conversion of the king himself, who had seen the conduct of the Christians and the deaths of the brigands. They labored on Corfu another twenty years and died in peace in the late first century. Their joint feast falls on April 28.