Mark

Pope Mark, known in Latin as Marcus, was Bishop of Rome for a few months in 336, from 18 January until 7 October. In the traditional reckoning of the papal succession he is counted as the thirty-fourth pope. The principal ancient source for his biography is the Liber Pontificalis, a later compilation of papal lives, which states that he was a Roman by birth (natione Romanus) and that his father was named Priscus. No contemporary document records the year of his birth, and that date remains unknown. He succeeded Pope Sylvester I, whose long pontificate had coincided with Constantine the Great’s patronage of the Church after the Edict of Milan and with the building of the great Constantinian basilicas. Mark’s own tenure lasted less than nine months.

The notices of his acts are few. The Liber Pontificalis credits him with a constitution confirming that the Bishop of Ostia, as dean of the suburbicarian bishops, had the right to consecrate the newly elected Bishop of Rome and should wear the pallium. That regulation reflects the developing ceremonial of papal consecration in the fourth century. Mark is also said to have founded two churches in or near Rome: an urban basilica, the titulus Marci, later known as the Basilica of San Marco, in the region of the Circus Flaminius near the Capitoline Hill, which he is reported to have endowed; and a cemetery basilica over the Catacomb of Balbina on the Via Ardeatina, south of the city walls. These foundations belong to the wave of church building that followed the Peace of the Church.

His brief reign fell against the background of the continuing Arian controversy. The Council of Nicaea in 325 had condemned Arius, but the dispute still divided the eastern churches and involved the imperial court. In 335, shortly before Mark’s election, the Council of Tyre deposed Athanasius of Alexandria, who was then banished by Constantine to Trier. Whether Mark took any public position on these events is not recorded in extant sources; the shortness of his pontificate and the loss of archives leave his theological stance undocumented. Emperor Constantine I was still living throughout Mark’s time in office and died only in May 337, after Mark himself had already died.

Pope Mark died in Rome on 7 October 336 and was buried in the cemetery church he had established on the Via Ardeatina, in the Catacomb of Balbina. The mid-fourth-century Depositio episcoporum records his deposition. He was succeeded by Julius I. Later centuries venerated him as a saint, as was customary for early bishops of Rome, and his feast is kept on 7 October. Relics associated with him came in subsequent centuries to be preserved in the Basilica of San Marco in Rome. Because the ancient sources are late and sparse, many aspects of his life—including any family beyond his father’s name, any earlier ecclesiastical career, and the precise circumstances of his election—cannot be verified from contemporary evidence.