Saint Sylvester. Sylvester I was the bishop of Rome from 314 until his death.
He is regarded as the 33rd Pope of the Catholic Church. He filled the see of Rome at an important era in the history of the Western Church, yet very little is known of him.
The accounts of his pontificate preserved in the seventh-or eighth-century Liber Pontificalis contain little more than a record of the gifts said to have been conferred on the church by Constantine I, although it does say that he was the son of a Roman named Ruffians. His feast is celebrated as Saint Sylvester's Day in Western Christianity on December 31, while Eastern Christianity commemorates him on January 2. During his pontificate, there were great churches founded, e.g.
the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Old St. Peter's Basilica and built, and several cemeterial churches were built over the graves of martyrs. Sylvester did not attend the First Council of Nicaea in 325, where the Nicene Creed was formulated, but he was represented by two legates, Vitus and Vincentius, and he approved the council's decision.
One of the Symmachian forgeries, the Vita beati Silvestri, which has been preserved in Greek and Syriac, is an apocryphal alleged account of a Roman council, including legends of Sylvester's close relationship with the first Christian emperor. These also appear in the Donation of Constantine. Long after his death,
He is regarded as the 33rd Pope of the Catholic Church. He filled the see of Rome at an important era in the history of the Western Church, yet very little is known of him.
The accounts of his pontificate preserved in the seventh-or eighth-century Liber Pontificalis contain little more than a record of the gifts said to have been conferred on the church by Constantine I, although it does say that he was the son of a Roman named Ruffians. His feast is celebrated as Saint Sylvester's Day in Western Christianity on December 31, while Eastern Christianity commemorates him on January 2. During his pontificate, there were great churches founded, e.g.
the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Old St. Peter's Basilica and built, and several cemeterial churches were built over the graves of martyrs. Sylvester did not attend the First Council of Nicaea in 325, where the Nicene Creed was formulated, but he was represented by two legates, Vitus and Vincentius, and he approved the council's decision.
One of the Symmachian forgeries, the Vita beati Silvestri, which has been preserved in Greek and Syriac, is an apocryphal alleged account of a Roman council, including legends of Sylvester's close relationship with the first Christian emperor. These also appear in the Donation of Constantine. Long after his death,
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