Felix I

Pope Felix I was Bishop of Rome from January 269 until his death in December 274, succeeding Pope Dionysius and preceding Pope Eutychian. The Liber Pontificalis describes him as a Roman by birth (natione Romanus). Almost nothing independently verifiable is known of his family, education, or career before he became bishop of the city. His pontificate fell in a comparatively quiet interval for the Church in the West, after the Valerianic persecution of the 250s and well before the Great Persecution under Diocletian. The emperor during most of his reign was Aurelian, whose policy toward Christians was not, for most of that period, one of open persecution.

The episode most securely connected with Felix’s see is the aftermath of the deposition of Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch. A synod at Antioch had condemned Paul for Christological error—commonly characterized as a form of monarchianism or adoptionism—and had chosen Domnus in his place, but Paul retained the church building with the support of Zenobia of Palmyra. After Aurelian recovered the East, the dispute over the building was referred to the emperor. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, Aurelian assigned the edifice to those who were in communion with the bishops of Italy and of Rome. That decision is important evidence for the prestige already attached to the Roman church in the later third century; it does not, however, preserve a detailed doctrinal letter or judgment that can be shown to have been written by Felix himself.

Later tradition, especially the Liber Pontificalis, credited Felix with a decree that Masses should be celebrated over the tombs of martyrs. Historians generally treat that notice as anachronistic or apocryphal for the third century, even though it reflects the later growth of the cult of the martyrs. A letter supposedly addressed by Felix to Bishop Maximus of Alexandria on the Trinity and the Incarnation is likewise regarded as a later forgery, produced in the setting of the fourth-century Apollinarian controversies. The same later sources sometimes called Felix a martyr. The historical circumstances of his death do not support that title: he died in a time of peace, and the notice of martyrdom in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum is not considered reliable.

Felix died on 30 December 274 and, according to the Liber Pontificalis, was buried in the Cemetery of Callistus (the Catacomb of Callixtus) on the Via Appia. His cult is ancient. Confusion with other saints named Felix, including the fourth-century figure associated with the title Felix II, led medieval and early modern Roman calendars to observe his feast on 30 May rather than on the anniversary of his death. In the 1969 reform of the General Roman Calendar his feast was dropped from the universal liturgical calendar, though he remains listed on 30 December in the Roman Martyrology. Beyond the traditional Roman origin, the dates of his episcopate, the Antiochene property decision recorded by Eusebius, and the place of burial, the biographical record is extremely thin.