Saints Cornelius, Pope, & Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs

On the sixteenth of September the Church commemorates together two great pastors and martyrs of the third century: Saint Cornelius, Pope of Rome, and Saint Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage. Though they laboured in different lands, they were bound by friendship, by a shared faith, and by a common fidelity that led each of them to give his life for Christ. The Church has long honoured them on one day, and their names are spoken together in the ancient Canon of the Mass.

Saint Cornelius, Pope

Saint Cornelius was chosen Bishop of Rome about the year 251, in a difficult time for the Church, when the wounds of a recent persecution were still fresh. A great question troubled the faithful: how to deal with those who, under the threat of torture and death, had fallen away and denied the faith, and now sought to be reconciled. Against a rigorist faction that would have shut the door of mercy upon them forever, Saint Cornelius upheld the Church’s power to forgive the truly penitent, joining justice to mercy. In this he was firmly supported by Saint Cyprian. When persecution arose again, the Pope was sent into exile, and there, after a brief pontificate, he died for the faith and was numbered among the martyrs.

Saint Cyprian, Bishop

Saint Cyprian was born at Carthage, in North Africa, of a wealthy and cultivated family, and was a teacher of rhetoric before his conversion to the faith in mature years. Once converted, he gave himself wholly to Christ, was soon ordained, and was chosen Bishop of Carthage. He governed his Church through years of persecution and plague with wisdom, courage, and charity, and he left to the Church a treasury of writings on unity, on the lapsed, on the Lord’s Prayer, and on the duties of the Christian life. Above all he taught and defended the unity of the Church, declaring that one cannot have God for a Father who has not the Church for a Mother. In the persecution under the Emperor Valerian, Saint Cyprian was first exiled and then condemned to death; he was beheaded at Carthage in the year 258, in the sight of his people, having calmly given thanks to God for the crown of martyrdom.

The collect of their feast asks that the Church may rejoice in the protection of these holy martyrs, and so attain to eternal joys. In Saints Cornelius and Cyprian the Church honours two shepherds who fed the flock in time of trial, defended the unity and the mercy of the Church, and laid down their lives for the faith they had taught. Their feast is kept on the sixteenth of September.

Patronage

They are venerated together as martyrs and as pastors of the early Church; Saint Cornelius is invoked against epilepsy and Saint Cyprian is honoured as a Father of the Church and teacher of her unity.