St Zephyrinus Pope Martyr(-217) Saint Of the Day August 26

St Zephyrinus became the XVth Pope in 199 on the death of St Victor I. Three years later Emperor Septimius Severus, whose mother, a Christian, had at first inclined him to be tolerant of the faith, issued his edict of persecution, prohibiting all conversions to Christianity and Judaism under the severest penalties.

Pope Zephyrinus entrusted to his Archdeacon St Callistus I, the administration of the burial ground which the Church had acquired on the Appian Way (its first landed properly). and this has ever since been known as the Catacombs of St Callistus. The narrow subterranean galleries of the Roman catacombs, lined on both sides with tiers of recessed tombs, were gradunll y extended to greater depths and to distances of many miles, so that they eventually became a maze way. The entrances were carefully concealed in vine-yards or disused sandpits. As recently as 1849 a Papal crypt was discovered in these Catacombs which had served for the interment of the Popes.

Zephyrinus had to contend with a number of heretical sects, and it was during his reign that Tertullian went over to the Montanists, who were then very active in Rome. This Pope also abolished the use of wooden chalices, decreeing that these be replaced with glass ones if metal was too expensive. He also required all the faithful to receive Holy Communion at Easter. Zephyrinus won the crown of martyrdom on 26 August 217. His relics are enshrined in San Silvestro at Rome, the church for English Catholics in the Eternal City.