Sixtus II

Pope Sixtus II (also known as Xystus II) was Bishop of Rome from 31 August 257 until his death on 6 August 258. He succeeded Pope Stephen I and was himself succeeded by Pope Dionysius. Almost nothing can be established with certainty about his early life or origins. The Liber Pontificalis, a later compilation whose notices for third-century popes are of uneven reliability, describes him as a Greek and a philosopher; modern historians treat that claim with caution and do not assign him a verified birthplace or birth year. His pontificate lasted less than twelve months, yet it fell at a decisive moment both for the internal unity of the churches and for the onset of a severe imperial persecution.

The chief ecclesiastical conflict of the preceding years had concerned the validity of baptism conferred outside the Catholic Church. Stephen I had insisted that heretical baptism was valid and that those returning to communion needed only the imposition of hands, a position that produced an open rupture with Cyprian of Carthage and with a number of Eastern bishops who required rebaptism. After Stephen’s death Sixtus II pursued a conciliatory course. He restored peace with the African and Eastern churches without a formal reversal of Rome’s teaching on baptism, thereby ending a schism that had threatened communion across the Mediterranean. Contemporary correspondence, including letters associated with Dionysius of Alexandria, reflects this reconciliation. The restoration of relations is one of the few securely attested acts of his brief reign.

In 257 the emperor Valerian issued edicts that forbade Christian assemblies, confiscated church property, and required clergy to sacrifice to the Roman gods. A further edict in 258 ordered the execution of bishops, priests, and deacons. On 6 August 258 Sixtus was seized while celebrating the liturgy in a cemetery on the Via Appia, traditionally identified as the cemetery of Praetextatus. He was beheaded there, together with four deacons—Januarius, Vincentius, Magnus, and Stephen. Two further deacons, Felicissimus and Agapitus, were killed the same day; the deacon Lawrence was executed four days later. A letter of Cyprian of Carthage, written shortly after the event, confirms that Xistus (Sixtus) was put to death in a cemetery on the eighth day before the Ides of August and that four deacons died with him. The account is among the best-attested martyrdoms of a third-century bishop of Rome.

Sixtus was buried in the papal crypt of the Catacomb of Callixtus on the Appian Way. In the fourth century Pope Damasus I placed a metrical epitaph there commemorating the martyr-pope and his companions. Sixtus is named in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon among the early popes. His cult is ancient: he is venerated as a saint and martyr in the Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the General Roman Calendar the feast of Sixtus II and companions is kept on 7 August, having been moved from 6 August so as not to coincide with the Feast of the Transfiguration. Relics associated with him were later translated from the catacombs; the Roman church of San Sisto Vecchio takes its dedication from him. Beyond these liturgical and topographical facts, later legendary elaborations of his passion are not independently verifiable.