Saints Pontian and Hippolytus

Martyrs
(died 235)

Saints Pontian and Hippolytus represent one of the most moving episodes of reconciliation in the history of the early Church. Hippolytus had been the leader of a schismatic group in Rome that had set him up as a rival bishop against the legitimate pope, in a dispute concerning the leniency of papal policy toward repentant sinners. For years this division caused pain in the Roman community, with Hippolytus maintaining a rigorous, even rigorist position against those he considered too lenient.

In 235 the Emperor Maximinus Thrax launched a persecution aimed particularly at the leaders of the Roman Church. Both Pontian, the legitimate Bishop of Rome, and Hippolytus, the schismatic rival, were arrested and condemned to the mines of Sardinia, a sentence that was effectively a slow death sentence given the brutal conditions of ancient mining operations. It was in this shared suffering, in the solidarity of the mines, that the schism was healed. Hippolytus was reconciled to the Church before his death, and the Roman community, in an extraordinary act of charity, honoured both men equally as martyrs.

Pontian resigned the papacy before his death so that the Roman community could elect a successor, the first recorded papal resignation in history. Both men died from the harsh conditions of their imprisonment, and their bodies were brought back to Rome and honoured with equal devotion. Their joint feast, keeping alive the memory of both the division and the reconciliation, is itself a testimony to the Church's capacity to hold together truth and mercy, fidelity and charity. Their feast is celebrated on August 13th.