Category: Lives of the Popes
Thomas V. Mirus surveys the history of the Church through the lives of the popes.
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The Little Peace of the Church
The popes in the middle of the third century experienced intense persecution by the emperors Decius and Valerius, but this suddenly gave way to a forty-year period of official and explicit toleration, which provided the Church with a foretaste of the lasting relief that was to come under Constantine.
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Popes of the Lost Sheep
The three popes who reigned during this period all had to deal with serious divisions within the Church, especially over questions of how the Church should treat fallen-away Catholics who wished to return, as well as those who had been baptized by heretics and now wished to join themselves to the true Church. An important participant in these controversies, was St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who supported the positions of Pope Sts. Cornelius and Lucius, but clashed with the third, Pope St. Stephen.
The First Antipope
The first four of the six popes covered in this installment found themselves in conflict with a priest named Hippolytus, the most brilliant intellectual of the Roman Church at the time. Hippolytus would become the first antipope in the history of the Church, plaguing three successive papacies with his schism. Yet his story has a happy and even poetic ending.
The Ten Popes of the Second Century
Little is known about many of the popes of the second century. Several of them were martyrs. They had to deal with different heresies that made their way to Rome, and there was also a controversy over the correct date of Easter.
Popes of the Apostolic Era
The first three popes after St. Peter likely knew the Prince of the Apostles personally and may even have been hand-selected by him. We know little of Linus and Cletus, but the first writing we possess by a pope after St. Peter himself is a precious letter by Pope Clement I to the Church of Corinth.
The Lives of the Popes, Part One of Infinity
Introduction to a series of articles covering the lives of the popes.
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