The First Anti-Pope, First Pope to Resign, Reconciled Enemies: Sts. Hippolytus & Pontian

Sts. Hippolytus & Pontian both served in a difficult period in which the nature of the Most Holy Trinity was called into question.

August 13, Feast of Saints Pontian, Pope and Hippolytus, Priest: From bitter rivals who reconciled. the Church claims them as her saints and martyrs, and honors them, as true brothers in Christ with a shared feast.

Hippolytus was one of the most important writers and thinkers in the Church before the fourth century. He was a learned priest in Rome and renowned for his eloquence. He spoke out against several popes for being too lax with people who strayed from the faith, or for not denouncing heresy forcefully enough. He thought the faithful should be an undefiled body of people.

Hippolytus was the first “antipope.” What began as zeal for dismantling heresy ended in a break with the Church, in which he proclaimed his disapproval of a newly-elected pope in 217 A.D. by having his own followers elect him pope. For 18 years, Hippolytus denied this break and continued living and ruling as the antipope.

Pontian, was elected pope in 230 A.D. He extinguished several heresies in his brief pontificate. He even tried to resolve the schism created by Hippolytus, but nothing worked.

In 235 A.D. during the Sixth Persecution, Maximinus, a new Roman Emperor came to power. In Cappadocia, the president, Seremianus, did all he could to exterminate the Christians from that province. At this point both Hippolytus and Pontian, found themselves in the inhuman slavery of the mines. There, in the dark, in the damp, in the grit, these two men met and recognized each other. The time was ripe, and through Pontian, God drew Hippolytus back to Himself. Pontian endured the sufferings of exile and harsh treatment in the Sardinian mines is unknown. According to old and no longer existing Acts of martyrs, used by the author of the “Liber Pontificalis”, he died as a consequence of the privations and inhuman treatment he had to bear. While the length of time these two holy souls spent in the mines is unknown, the Church claims them as her saints and martyrs, and honors them as true brothers in Christ, with a shared feast.

Before his arrest, Pontian stepped down from his role as pope so that the Christian community could select another leader in his absence.

The main people who perished under this reign were Pontianus, bishop of Rome; Anteros, a Grecian, his successor, who gave offence to the government by collecting the acts of the martyrs, Pammachius and Quiritus, Roman senators, with all their families, and many other Christians; Simplicius, senator; Calepodius, a Christian minister, thrown into the Tyber; Martina, a noble and beautiful virgin; and Hippolitus, a Christian prelate, tied to a wild horse, and dragged until he expired.

During this persecution, raised by Maximinus, numberless Christians were slain without trial, and buried indiscriminately in heaps, sometimes fifty or sixty being cast into a pit together, without the least decency

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Prayer to Saint Pontian and Hippolytus

You both served in a difficult period in which the nature of the Most Holy Trinity was called into question. You defended the truth and taught it tirelessly. As a result of your fidelity, you both died for the faith, reconciled to God and to each other.