Ceferino

Ceferinus (Rome, ¿?-Rome, December 20, 217) was the fifteenth Pope of the Catholic Church between the years 199 and 217.

Biography

Abundius' son, at the beginning of his pontificate he appointed Calixto, who would be his successor, Archdeacon of Rome, a position equivalent to the current one of Secretary of State, and which meant making him his main adviser, which given his scant theological training Ceferino made him totally dependent on him.

We know much more about Zephyrinus than about any other pontiff of the early years of the Church, although this information is possibly biased towards the behavior of the Roman theologian Hippolytus, who, in his work Philosopheumena, accused the pope as an adherent of modalistic monarchianism or modalism, a doctrine that denied the Trinity and possibly accepted by Ceferino, influenced by his adviser Calixto, as a response to Montanism. In said work, Hipólitos describes Ceferino as clumsy and ignorant, which can be true, since he did not enjoy the theological knowledge of his archdeacon and adviser.

Ceferino established that young people, when they were 14 years old, made communion for Easter and that the chalices were not made of wood, but of glass. He also introduced the use of the paten. He also excommunicated Tertullian.

He ordered that priests and deacons be publicly ordained in the presence of many clerics and laymen so that innocence would be manifested and that people of irreproachable life be endowed for these offices.

During his pontificate, which began under the government of Emperor Septimius Severus, persecutions against Christians resumed, persecutions that eased at his death and during the tenure of his successor, Caracalla, but which were reactivated when he ascended, in 217, to the throne of the Macrinus empire, which makes certain sources affirm that Ceferino died in that same year after suffering martyrdom, although there is no documentary evidence of such affirmation.

Ceferinus was buried in a burial chamber of his own near the Catacombs of Callixtus on the Appian Way.

The prayer typical of the masses that are celebrated for San Ceferino is the Praesta quaesumus, typical of the martyred pontiffs.

He is the patron saint of Caldari, a district of Ortona, and his festival is commemorated there on August 26. The processional image is inside the parish church, dedicated to the saint.