Stephen I

Pope Stephen I was Bishop of Rome from 254 until his death in 257. According to the Liber Pontificalis he was a Roman by birth, the son of a man named Jovius; no reliable ancient source records the year of his birth, and later guesses cannot be verified. He succeeded Pope Lucius I during a comparatively quiet interval for the Church that followed the Decian persecution and preceded the measures of the emperor Valerian. Almost nothing can be established about his life before the papacy. His short reign is known chiefly from the baptismal controversy that pitted the Roman see against leading bishops in Africa and parts of the East.

The dispute concerned persons baptized by heretics or schismatics who later sought communion with the Catholic Church. Cyprian of Carthage and synods in Roman Africa, together with some churches in Asia Minor, held that such baptism was invalid and that converts must be baptized again. Stephen upheld the Roman custom that baptism conferred in the name of the Trinity was valid regardless of the minister’s standing, and that reconciliation required only the imposition of hands for the Holy Spirit. He refused to receive an African delegation sent to argue Cyprian’s position and is reported to have broken communion with communities that insisted on rebaptism. His own letters survive only in hostile quotations, especially those of Cyprian and of Firmilian of Caesarea, who accused him of arrogance and of abandoning apostolic practice. The conflict was unresolved at his death and continued to be discussed by later writers, including Augustine of Hippo.

Other notices of his activity are few. Gallic bishops, among them Faustinus of Lyons, appealed to him in the case of Marcian, the Novatianist bishop of Arles, asking that Marcian be deposed; the outcome is not clearly documented. A later tradition in the Liber Pontificalis ascribes to Stephen a rule that clergy should not wear liturgical vestments as ordinary dress. In the baptismal quarrel he is already portrayed as invoking the privileged tradition of the Roman church and its connection with the Apostle Peter, language that would become important in later claims of Roman authority. Relations with several Eastern churches were strained by the same controversy.

Stephen died in Rome in 257, traditionally on 2 August. The Liber Pontificalis and subsequent martyrologies present him as a martyr beheaded while seated on his episcopal chair at the outset of Valerian’s persecution. Most modern historians treat that account as legendary: the imperial edict aimed at the clergy is generally placed later in 257, and Eusebius of Caesarea does not list Stephen among the martyrs. He was buried in the papal crypt of the Catacomb of Callixtus on the Via Appia. In the early Middle Ages his relics were translated; they are now kept at the church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome. He is commemorated on 2 August. His successor was Sixtus II, who was put to death the following year.