Saint Pontian

The system followed under the reign of Alexander Severus, with regard to the sovereign Pontiffs, did not take long to be applied to Pontian. This holy Pope had to suffer persecution for the freedom of his ministry; he was not, however, put to death, but an order issued from the imperial court e xiled him with the holy p le saint prêtre Hippolyte Saint priest exiled to Sardinia with Pope Pontian. riest Hippolytus, distinct from the bishop of Porto, to the island of Buccina, one of the wildest on the southern Sardaigne Island of the exile and martyrdom of Saint Pontian. coast of Sardinia.

Alexander Severus had undertaken an expedition against the Germans. The legions, dissatisfied with the severity with which he worked to restore military discipline, and stirred up by Maximin the Thracian, assassinated him near Mainz in the twenty-eighth year of his life (235). Maximin hastened to reap the fruits of the crime. The new emperor, a former shepherd in the mountains of Thrace, was a giant, eight and a half feet tall, coarse and unlettered, barely speaking the Latin language, making a game of men's lives, of a savage and ferocious character. His first concern was to publish edicts of death against the Christians. This was the sixth general persecution that broke out against the Church. Maximin's decrees were specifically directed against those who taught in the churches and who governed them. The material impossibility of extending the proscription to the entire multitude of the faithful without depopulating the empire, no less than the hope of succeeding in extinguishing the religion in the blood of its leaders and pastors, had dictated this reserve. The order was immediately dispatched to put to death, on the very island where Alexander had exiled him, the holy Pope Pontian (November 235 le saint pape Pontien Pope and martyr of the 3rd century, exiled to Sardinia. ). His body was later transported to Rome and depos ited Rome Birthplace of Maximian. , under the pontificate of Saint Fa bian, in the saint Fabien Pope who had the remains of Pontian transported to Rome. cemetery of Callixtus.

Abbé Darras, L'abbé Darras Author of the Histoire générale de l'Église, source of the text. General History of the Church.