Clement I
35 — 99 · Feast day: November 23
An Apostolic Father and the fourth Bishop of Rome, Clement's letter to the Corinthians is one of the oldest surviving Christian texts outside the New Testament, offering the earliest clear articulation of apostolic succession. According to 4th-century tradition, he was exiled to the Crimea under Trajan and martyred by being thrown into the sea with an anchor — the image that has made him patron of mariners.