St. Silvester, Pope (Dec. 31st)

Of the Feast Days and Saints Commemorated this week: 

December 28 - SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY FAMILY OF JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH (A)

December 28 - The Holy Innocents, Martyrs

December 29 - Saint Thomas Becket, Bishop and Martyr

December 31 - Saint Sylvester I, Pope

January 1 - SOLEMNITY OF MARY, THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

January 2 - Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church

January 3 - The Most Holy Name of Jesus

January 4 - SOLEMNITY OF THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD (A) 

January 4 - Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton (USA) 


I’ve chosen to write about Saint Sylvester.  


I do so, in good part, because, in Bohemia / the Czech Republic, where my parents come from, New Year’s Celebrations are called “St. Silvester Day.”  People ask “What are you doing for (St) Sylverster’s,” TV and Radio Stations advertise their programing for (St) Sylverster’s… My sense is that this is the case across Central Europe.


So who then was St. Sylvester?  Above all, he was Pope, at the time of the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire under Constantine.  And the future St. Sylvester did not disappoint:


During his time, he consecrated the Constantinian Basilicas of (Old) St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s (outside the Walls) built on top of the resting places of the two apostles and co-patrons of Rome.   The Constantinian Basilica of (Old) St. Peter’s was, of course, rebuilt and amplified to the St. Peter’s Basilica of today during the Renaissance.   St. Sylvester also built and consecrated the Basilica of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem (in Rome) to house the large relic of the Cross brought back to Rome from the Holy Land by St. Helen, Emperor Constantine’s mother.


St. Silverster also convened two councils, the Council of Arles (314 AD) (which condemned the Donatist heresy, which questioned Jesus’ true humanity) and of the Ecumenical Council of Niceea (325 AD) (which was convoked to combat the Arian Heresy which sought to diminish / limit Jesus’ divinity).  


By all accounts, it would seem that the future St. Silverster and Emperor Constantine had a close relationship.  This relationship came to be amplified in the West in the years and then centuries following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when the Papacy, the only Institution left standing, took on a far greater governing importance in Western Europe than it had before.   A number of the legends regarding St. Silverster and his friendship with Emperor Constantine are recorded in the 6th century Acts of St. Sylvester and, of course, in the 9th century Donation of Constantine.


That all said, the future St. Silverster played a very important role at the time when the Church was able to come out of the shadows and then become the official religion of the Roman Empire. 


We do not know what the future will bring, but we have the example of St. Silverster, of a significant Church leader who was able to stand up and meet the utterly new realities that the Church faced during his appointed time.


St. Silverster, pray for us!

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