This fifth of January is the traditional commemoration of the eighth bishop of Rome after Saint Peter, namely, Saint Telesphorus. Not much is known about his life: He was Greek, and was chosen Pope in 126 A.D., during which he purportedly instituted a seven-week Lent before Easter, that Easter be celebrated on a Sunday (as oppose to the Quartodecimians, who insisted on it being on the ’14th of Nisan’ in the Hebraic calendar). Telesphorus also decreed that the Gloria be sung at Mass, as well as starting the custom of Christmas Midnight Masses. He also fought the wide-ranging, slippery heresy of Gnosticism, decades before the great Saint Irenaeus.
Speaking of whom, it was Saint Irenaus who wrote that Telesphorus was put to death for the Faith in 137 A.D. Telesphorus is thus the first Pope to have a historical record of dying a martyr, even if all of his predecessors are traditionally held to have a similar glorious end. May this great Pope intercede for us, and for our current Holy Father in our own fractious times, as the indestructible barque of Peter sails its course through history, unto the end.
