Pope Lucius I was thebishop of Rome 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 byEmperor Valerian, which did not begin until after Lucius' death.
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.[1]
Lucius is praised in several letters ofCyprian (see Epist. lxviii. 5) for condemning theNovationists for their refusal to readmit to communion Christians who repented for having lapsed under persecution.
Lucius I'sfeast day is 5 March, on which date he is commemorated in theRoman Martyrology 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."[2]
His feast did not appear in theTridentine calendar ofPope Pius V. In 1602, it was inserted under the date of 4 March, into theGeneral Roman Calendar. With the insertion in 1621 on the same date of the feast ofSaint Casimir, the celebration of Pope Lucius was reduced to a commemoration within Saint Casimir'sMass. In the1969 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,[3] and was moved in theRoman Martyrology to the day of his death.
In spite of what is mistakenly stated in theLiber Pontificalis, he did not in fact suffer martyrdom.[4] The persecution ofValerian in which he was said to have been martyred is known to have started later than March 254, when Pope Lucius died.
Lucius I's tombstone is still extant in thecatacomb of Callixtus. His relics were later brought to the church ofSanta Cecilia in Trastevere, along with the relics ofCecilia and others. His head is preserved in areliquary inSt. Ansgar's Cathedral in Copenhagen, Denmark. This relic was brought toRoskilde around the year 1100, after Lucius had been declaredpatron saint of the Danish regionZealand. According to tradition, there had beendemons at large at theIsefjord at Roskilde city,[5] and as they declared that they feared nothing but Lucius' skull, this had to be brought to Denmark, whereupon peace took reign of thefjord again.[6] After theReformation, the skull was taken to the exhibition rooms of kingFrederik III in Copenhagen, where it was on exhibit along with thepetrifiedembryo 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[7] started wondering if Lucius' skull might have been mixed up with the skull of the Norwegian kingSigurd the Crusader (1090–1130). This skull had also been kept in the Danish National Museum collection in the 1800s until it was donated toOslo University in 1867. Danish experts from the National Museum then studied the skull, usingcarbon dating 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.[8]
^Kirsch, Johann Peter (1910). "Pope St. Lucius I" inThe Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
^Romae via Appia in coemeterio Callisti, depositio sancti Lucii, papae, qui, sancti Cornelii successor, pro Christi fide exsilium passus est et, fidei confessor eximius, in angustiis tempestatibus suis moderatione ac prudentia se gessit [Martyrologium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001ISBN978-88-209-7210-3), die 5 martii].
^Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1969), pp. 88 and 118
^St. Lucius I; "There are no grounds for counting St Lucius among the martyrs, since he is listed in theDepositio Episcoporum" [Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1969), p. 118]
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