Anastasius

The name Anastasius (Greek Anastasios, from anastasis, resurrection) was borne by a large number of distinct Christian bishops, monks, martyrs, and popes from late antiquity through the high Middle Ages. No Wikidata identifier, diocese, century, or feast date was supplied with this request, so the subject cannot be identified with a single historical person. Fields that require a unique biography—year of birth, year of death, places of birth, death, and burial, religious order, patronage, and canonization—are therefore left blank rather than filled by conjecture. The name itself is masculine in Greek and Latin usage, which is the only attribute that can be assigned without choosing among homonyms.

Among Western saints the best-known bearer is Anastasius of Persia, a convert from Zoroastrianism whose pre-baptismal name is given in the Greek martyr acts as Magundat. A soldier in the Sasanian army, he encountered Christian captives after the Persian capture of Jerusalem in the early seventh century, received baptism, and became a monk in Palestine, in the orbit of the lavra of Saint Sabas. He was later arrested, tortured, and executed for his faith under Khosrow II; the passion tradition places the martyrdom in 628. Relics were translated to Palestine and in time to Rome and other Latin churches. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 22 January. Neither a birth year nor a specific Persian city of origin is securely attested in the early sources.

Four bishops of Rome took the name Anastasius. Anastasius I died in 401 after a pontificate beginning in 399; he is documented in correspondence involving Augustine of Hippo and Jerome and in measures against Origenist teaching, and he was buried in the catacomb of Pontian on the Via Portuensis. Anastasius II died in 498 during the Acacian schism and was later viewed with suspicion in some Roman narratives. Anastasius III belongs to the early tenth century and Anastasius IV (Conrad of Suburra) to the mid-twelfth century; neither is a major cult figure. These popes are distinct from Anastasius Bibliothecarius, the ninth-century Roman librarian and translator of Greek conciliar, historical, and hagiographical texts, who was never an accepted bishop of Rome in the papal succession.

Eastern churches remember still other men of the same name. Anastasius of Sinai (Anastasius Sinaita), abbot of the monastery of Saint Catherine in the later seventh century, composed the Hodegos against Miaphysite Christology and a collection of questions and answers. Patriarchs include Anastasius I of Antioch in the sixth century, who suffered exile in connection with imperial religious policy, and an eighth-century patriarch of Constantinople associated with the first period of Byzantine Iconoclasm. The Coptic Church of Alexandria numbers a Pope Anastasius among the successors of Saint Mark in the early seventh century. Feast days, patronages, and burial sites differ for each of these figures. Because the intended Anastasius is unspecified, no single feast day, patronage list, or office as pope or patriarch can be verified for this record.