Urban I
175 — 230 · Feast day: May 25
A third-century Bishop of Rome whose eight-year pontificate coincided with a rare lull in imperial persecution under Alexander Severus. Urban maintained Callixtus I's firm stance against the antipope Hippolytus, oversaw notable growth in the Roman Church, and issued a decree governing how the faithful's offerings must be used. Though venerated as a martyr for centuries, modern scholarship holds he died of natural causes.