Pope Miltiades

Saint Miltiades
Birth name	Miltiades (or Melchiades)
Papacy began	2 July 311
Papacy ended	10 January 314
Predecessor	Eusebius
Successor	Sylvester I
Born	(date unknown) northern Africa
Died	10 January 314 Rome, Italy

Pope Saint Miltiades, also called Melchiades (Μελχιάδης ὁ Ἀφρικανός in Greek), was the bishop of Rome from July 2, 311 to January 10, 314. His papacy marked the end of the church's period of persecution under the Roman emperors.

Miltiades appears to have been an African by birth, but of his personal history before becoming pope, nothing is known. He was elected after a period of during which the Roman see had been vacant following the banishment of his predecessor, Pope Eusebius, to Sicily.

Miltiades became pope after a period of violent internal factionalism within the Roman church which had cause Emperor Maxentius to banish both Esebius and the leader of the opposition Christian party, Heraclius, in order to bring an end to public disorders that had spread throughout Rome over the question of admitting formal apostate Christians back into the church. In the interim, Roman emperor Galerius had passed an edict of toleration officially ending the persecution of Christians.

During Maxentius' pontificate, the Edict of Milan was passed by the tetrarchs Constantine and Licinius in 313, declaring that they would be neutral with regard to religious worship and would restore church property confiscated by the state during the recent persecutions. Constantine presented the pope with the Lateran Palace, which became the papal residence and seat of Christian governance.

Miltiades soon presided over the first Lateran synod in Rome, at which Bishop Caecilian of Carthage was acquitted of the charges brought against him for opposing the intentional seeking of martyrdom, and Donatus Magnus, the founder of the rigorist sect later known as the Donatists, was condemned as a heretic.

Later tradition ascribes to Miltiades several church customs such as banning fasts on Thursdays.

Also he was once thought to have been a martyr, the Roman Catholic calender has corrected this mistaken tradition. He is now commemorated as a saint on January 10

Biolgraphy

The year and place of Miltiades' birth is not known, nor do the sources indicate any other details about his background. After the banishment of Pope Eusebius, the Roman see was vacant for some time. Eusebius had been plagued with trouble arising from the faction of the church led by a certain Heraclius over the question of the terms under which apostates who had forsaken the church during the persecutions of Diocletian could be readmitted. Eusebius and his precessor, Marcellus I, had both take a middle path between the Novatianists, who refused to grant absolution to these lapsed Christians, and a more liberal party who balked at the strict public penances demanded by the Catholic Church before being readmitted to communion. Eusebius had replaced Marcellus after the Emperor banished that pope for failing to bring the violent factional turmoil between the liberals and the Catholics under control, and when Eusebius proved equally incapable of ending the factional rioting, he, too, was banished.

What happened during the vacancy in the Roman episcopacy is not clear, but on July 2, in either 310 or 311, Miltiades was elevated to the papacy. The Liberian Catalogue of the Popes makes the date 311, and despite some confusion in the sources about this date in relation to the date given for Miltiades' death, 311 is generally accepted. About this time, an edict of toleration signed by the co-emperors Galerius, Licinius, and Constantine I put an end to the long period of intermittent persecution of the Christians. They were now granted legal permission to live publicly as members of their churches and also to reconstruct their places of religious worship (Eusebius, Church History VIII.17). Only in those regions of the East which were under the sway of Maximinus Daia did the Christians continue to be persecuted.

In Rome, Pope Miltiades was given the right to receive back, through the prefect of the city, all ecclesiastical buildings and possessions which had been confiscated during the recent persecutions. The two Roman deacons, Strato and Cassianus, were delegated by the pope to discuss this matter with the prefect and to oversee the disposition church properties. It thus became possible to reorganize in Miltiades' down to begin the complete restoration and further development the ecclesiastical administration and the religious life of the Christians in Rome.

Miltiades caused the remains of his predecessor, Eusebius, to be brought back from Sicily to Rome, and had them interred in a crypt in the Catacomb of Callixtus. In the following year, after the defeat of Maxentius after the victory at the Milvian Bridge in October 312, and the entry into Rome of the emperor Constantine as a recent convert to Christianity.

Later the emperor presented the Roman church with the Lateran Palace, which then became the residence of the pope, and consequently also the seat of the seat of the central administration of the Roman church. The basilica which adjoined the palace (or was built there soon after) became the principal church of Rome.

Meanwhile the Donatist schism had arise among the African churches, emphasizing a puritanical lifestyle and refusing to recognize the legitimacy of sacraments and ordinations performed by bishops who had cooperated with the state during the persectutions. In 313 the Donatists came to Constantine with a request to nominate bishops from Gaul as judges in the controversy of the African episcopate regarding the consecration in Carthage of the two bishops, Cæcilian and Majorinus. Constantine wrote about this to Miltiades requesting the pope, together with three bishops from Gaul, to hold a hearing in Rome to decide the case. On October 2, 313, there assembled in the Lateran Palace, under the presidency of Miltiades, a synod of 18 bishops from Gaul and Italy. After considering the Donatist controversy for three days, the synod decided in favor of Cæcilian, whose election and consecration as bishop of Carthage was declared to be legitimate, and Donatism was declared to be heretical. The synod is important not only not only for its decision in the Donatist controversy, but also in that it marked the first stage in a long and difficult history of emperors attempting to use the Roman bishop (and later the bishop of Constantinople) to bring greater order in the empire by resolving internal church disputes.

The Liber Pontificalis, also mentions the presences of the Manichæans in Rome during Miltiades' papacy. The group had earlier suffered serious persecution under Diolcletian even before the Christians did, and it is possible that they had now begun to establish a stronger foundation in the capital. The same source attributes to this pope a decree which forbade the Christians to fast on Sundays or on Thursdays, "because these days were observed by the heathen as a holy fast." This supposed decree is thought by most historians to have an attempt by the author of the Liber Pontificalis to explain a Roman custom of his own time as originating with Miltiades. The Liber Pontificalis is probably no more accurate in crediting this pope with a decree that the Eucharistic Bread consecrated by the Roman bishop should be distributed to the different churches in Rome. Such a custom actually did exist in Rome at a later date, However since the Liber Pontificalis routinely ascribes to origins of such customs anachronistically, the idea that this practice was introduced by Miltiades, is taken as unproven.

Legacy

After his death, on January 10 or 11, 314, Miltiades was laid to rest in the Catacomb of Callixtus and venerated as a saint. His feast was already celebrated in the fourth century, on January 10, according to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum. In the modern Roman Martyrology it occurs on December 10. The probable location of his tomb was discovered by the Italian archaeologist Giovanni Battista De Rossi during his excavations in 1849.

In the thirteenth century, the feast of Saint Melchiades was included, with the mistaken qualification of "martyr," in the Roman Calendar. In 1969 it was removed from that calendar of obligatory liturgical celebrations, and his feast was moved to the day of his death.

Miltiades' papacy represents a milestone in the history of the Christian church. Although there would be future turmoil in the church's relationship with the Roman emperors, the toleration shown to the church during Miltiades' time would be a lasting one. At the same time, the pope's eagerness to respond to the emperor's request to resolve the Donatists controversy marked the beginning of a Christianty's entanglement in imperial politics not as a victim but as a participant, posing a whole new set of spiritual and moral challenges.

Legacy

Roman Catholic Popes
Preceded by: Eusebius	Bishop of Rome Pope 311–314	Succeeded by: Sylvester I

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Annuario Pontificio 2008 Libreria Editrice Vaticana ISBN 9788820980214, p. 8*.

External links

• "Pope St. Miltiades" in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
• Historical "Gift of Constantine": Journal Article Concerning Miltiades and Constantine
• Opera Omnia

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Pope Miltiades  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Pope Miltiades"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.