Saint Alexander I-Pope

Catholic Saint

st.Alexander I-Pope  ' Alexander wears a triple tiara and holds a triple cross and book'

Feast Day : October 18

Alexander was a Roman and is said to have been a student of Pliny the Younger. He converted to Christianity and succeeded St. Evaristus as bishop of Rome, thus becoming the sixth pope. His reign lasted from ca. 105 to ca. 115. Alexander is sometimes credited with having introduced the custom of blessing houses with salt water, but this was in fact an ancient Roman practice. He is also said to have introduced the commemoration of the Last Supper into the Mass, although this almost certainly came later. According to tradition, Alexander was arrested by Emperor Hadrian and imprisoned along with two priests, SS. Eventulus and Theodulus. During his imprisonment, he managed to convert his jailer, St. Quirinus, and his daughter, St. Balbina. This, however, did not save him and his friends from being burned and then beheaded by Hadrian’s soldiers on the Via Nomentana in Rome. In 1855, archaeologists discovered what are thought to be their bodies in a semisubterranean cemetery at the spot where they died. Their relics have since been moved to the church of St.Sabina, now under the charge of the Dominicans. In art, Alexandera wears a triple tiara and holds a triple cross and book.