Sylvester I

Pope Sylvester I (d. 335) served as Bishop of Rome from 314 to 335, a pontificate that spanned one of the most consequential transitions in Church history — the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great and the shift of Christianity from a persecuted minority faith to a publicly favored religion of the Roman Empire. Very little, however, is known of Sylvester himself as a person; the historical record preserves his office far better than his character. Sylvester convened the Council of Arles in 314, which condemned the Donatist schism in North Africa and addressed questions of church discipline across the Western provinces. The First Council of Nicaea (325), the first ecumenical council, condemned Arianism and produced the Nicene Creed; Sylvester, due to his age, was represented there by legates rather than attending in person. During Sylvester's pontificate, Constantine funded Rome's great basilicas: the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran (the pope's cathedral), Old St. Peter's Basilica, and the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (Santa Croce in Gerusalemme). These buildings announced the Church's new public standing in stone and mosaic. The medieval 'Donation of Constantine' — proved a forgery by Lorenzo Valla in 1440 — claimed that Constantine, after being cured of leprosy and baptized by Sylvester, granted him temporal sovereignty over Rome and the Western Empire. The legend of Constantine's baptism by Sylvester is historically unfounded; Constantine was almost certainly baptized by Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia on his deathbed in 337, after Sylvester had already died. Nevertheless, the Donation shaped the political claims of the medieval papacy for centuries.