Pope Lucius I was the

bishop of Rome A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

from 25 June 253 to his death on 5 March 254. He was banished soon after his consecration, but gained permission to return. He was mistakenly classified as a martyr in the persecution by

Emperor Valerian Valerian (; la, Publius Licinius Valerianus; c. 199 – 260 or 264) was Roman emperor from 253 to spring 260 AD. He persecuted Christians and was later taken captive by the Persian emperor Shapur I after the Battle of Edessa, becoming the fir ...

, which did not begin until after Lucius' death.

Life

Lucius was born in Rome. Nothing is known about his family except his father's name, Porphyrianus. He was elected probably on 25 June 253. His election took place during the persecution which caused the banishment of his predecessor, Cornelius, and he also was banished soon after his consecration, but succeeded in gaining permission to return.Kirsch, Johann Peter (1910). "Pope St. Lucius I" in ''The Catholic Encyclopedia''. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Lucius is praised in several letters of

Cyprian Cyprian (; la, Thaschus Caecilius Cyprianus; 210 – 14 September 258 AD''The Liturgy of the Hours according to the Roman Rite: Vol. IV.'' New York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1975. p. 1406.) was a bishop of Carthage and an early Christ ...

(see Epist. lxviii. 5) for condemning the Novationists for their refusal to readmit to communion Christians who repented for having lapsed under persecution.

Veneration

Lucius I's

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context do ...

is 5 March, on which date he is commemorated in the

Roman Martyrology The ''Roman Martyrology'' ( la, Martyrologium Romanum) is the official martyrology of the Catholic Church. Its use is obligatory in matters regarding the Roman Rite liturgy, but dioceses, countries and religious institutes may add duly approve ...

in the following terms: "In the cemetery of Callistus on the Via Appia, Rome, burial of Saint Lucius, Pope, successor of Saint Cornelius. For his faith in Christ he suffered exile and acted as an outstanding confessor of the faith, with moderation and prudence, in the difficult times that were his." His feast did not appear in the Tridentine Calendar of

Pope Pius V Pope Pius V ( it, Pio V; 17 January 1504 – 1 May 1572), born Antonio Ghislieri (from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri, O.P.), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1566 to his death in May 1572. He is v ...

. In 1602, it was inserted under the date of 4 March, into the

General Roman Calendar The General Roman Calendar is the liturgical calendar that indicates the dates of celebrations of saints and mysteries of the Lord (Jesus Christ) in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, wherever this liturgical rite is in use. These cel ...

. With the insertion in 1621 on the same date of the feast of

Saint Casimir Casimir Jagiellon ( la, Casimirus; lt, Kazimieras; pl, Kazimierz; 3 October 1458 – 4 March 1484) was a prince of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Second son of King Casimir IV Jagiellon, he was tutored by Johann ...

, the celebration of Pope Lucius was reduced to a commemoration within Saint Casimir's

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different ele ...

. In the 1969 revision Pope Lucius's feast was omitted from the General Roman Calendar, partly because of the baselessness of the title of "martyr" with which he had previously been honoured, and was moved in the

to the day of his death. In spite of what is mistakenly stated in the ''

Liber Pontificalis The ''Liber Pontificalis'' (Latin for 'pontifical book' or ''Book of the Popes'') is a book of biographies of popes from Saint Peter until the 15th century. The original publication of the ''Liber Pontificalis'' stopped with Pope Adrian II (86 ...

'', he did not in fact suffer martyrdom. The persecution of Valerian in which he was said to have been martyred is known to have started later than March 254, when Pope Lucius died.

Tomb

Lucius I's tombstone is still extant in the catacomb of Callixtus. His relics were later brought to the church of

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is a 5th-century church in Rome, Italy, in the Trastevere rione, devoted to the Roman martyr Saint Cecilia (early 3rd century AD). History The first church on this site was founded probably in the 3rd century, by ...

, along with the relics of Cecilia and others. His head is preserved in a

reliquary A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', by the French term ''châsse'', and historically including '' phylacteries'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a ''fereter'', and a chapel in which it is housed a ''fer ...

in St. Ansgar's Cathedral in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

. This relic was brought to

Roskilde Roskilde ( , ) is a city west of Copenhagen on the Danish island of Zealand. With a population of 51,916 (), the city is a business and educational centre for the region and the 10th largest city in Denmark. It is governed by the administrative ...

around the year 1100, after Lucius had been declared

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...

of the Danish region

Zealand Zealand ( da, Sjælland ) at 7,031 km2 is the largest and most populous island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 January 2020. It is the 1 ...

. According to tradition, there had been

demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in Media (communication), media such as comics, video ...

s at large at the

Isefjord Ise Fjord ( da, Isefjorden) is a deeply branched arm of the sea into the Danish island Zealand. From its relatively narrow entrance from the Kattegat at Hundested and Rørvig, branches of Ise Fjord stretch 35 km inland and divide the northern ...

at Roskilde city, and as they declared that they feared nothing but Lucius' skull, this had to be brought to Denmark, whereupon peace took reign of the

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icel ...

again. After the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, the skull was taken to the exhibition rooms of king Frederik III in Copenhagen, where it was on exhibit along with the

petrified In geology, petrifaction or petrification () is the process by which organic material becomes a fossil through the replacement of the original material and the filling of the original pore spaces with minerals. Petrified wood typifies this p ...

embryo An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male spe ...

a woman had carried inside her for 28 years, as well as other monstrosities the king had collected. The skull remained in Roskilde Cathedral until 1908, when it was moved to Saint Ansgar's Cathedral while the property of Copenhagen's National museum. Pope Lucius' head is among the few relics to have survived the Reformation in Denmark. However the Norwegian researcher Øystein Morten started wondering if Lucius' skull might have been mixed up with the skull of the Norwegian king Sigurd the Crusader (1090–1130). This skull had also been kept in the Danish National Museum collection in the 1800s until it was donated to Oslo University in 1867. Danish experts from the National Museum then studied the skull, using

carbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was de ...

which concluded that the skull belonged to a man who lived between AD 340 and 431, nearly 100 years after the death of Lucius in 254. So the skull in question never belonged to Lucius, who died around AD 254. The results also rule out that it may have belonged to the King Sigurd.

Notes

References

External links