Fortunatus, Achaicus, and Stephanas were members of the early Christian community at Corinth and fellow-laborers of the Apostle Paul, numbered by Orthodox tradition among the Seventy Apostles. They are known chiefly from a single passage of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, where he names all three together with thanksgiving. The Church commemorates them jointly on June 15 and again on January 4 in the common feast of the Seventy.
Paul writes of them in 1 Corinthians 16:17–18: 'I was glad when Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus arrived, because they have supplied what was lacking from you,' adding that 'they refreshed my spirit as well as yours.' By the reading of commentators, the three had come from Corinth to Paul at Ephesus, probably bearing the letter in which the Corinthians had put their questions to him, and to which First Corinthians is in part a reply. They thus served as a living link between the apostle and the church he had founded.
Stephanas holds a distinct place in the same letter: Paul records that he baptized the household of Stephanas (1 Corinthians 1:16) and describes that household as 'the firstfruits of Achaia' who 'devoted themselves to the service of the saints' (1 Corinthians 16:15). They were therefore among the earliest converts of the province and among the few whom Paul baptized at Corinth with his own hand. Orthodox sources are careful to note that this Stephanas is not to be confused with Stephen the Protomartyr, the first of the deacons.
Beyond these scriptural notices little is recorded of the three with certainty. Orthodox synaxaria relate that, as members of the Seventy, they labored with their whole heart to spread the Gospel among the nations during the apostolic age. Some sources raise the possibility that Fortunatus may be identified with Tychicus, a companion of Paul mentioned in Acts, but this identification is uncertain and is offered only tentatively.
