Who Was the First Pope Not to be a Saint?

by Gunther Simmermacher · November 29, 2022

By Günther Simmermacher –

Question: I know that a lot of popes in the early years of the Church were sainted. But who was the first pope not to be a saint, and why?

Answer: The first 35 popes, from St Peter to St Julius I in 352, are listed as saints. The unfortunate pope to break that sequence was Liberius, who reigned from May 17, 352 to September 24, 366.

For most of those 14 years, Liberius was under pressure by the Roman Emperor Constantius II, who sympathised with the Arian heresy. The emperor even exiled Liberius and installed a puppet pope, fellow Arian Felix II. But the Romans didn’t accept Felix, and after three years Constantius allowed Liberius to return to Rome, planning to let him co-rule with Felix. Instead, the Romans welcomed Liberius and expelled Felix, who is now listed as an anti-pope.

What disqualified Liberius from sainthood? Presumably rumours that he had yielded to Constantius on some points of Arianism in order to secure his release from exile. But the letters containing these supposed concessions might very well have been forgeries. Liberius is regarded as a saint in the Eastern rites and in the Orthodox Church.

The next 13 popes are listed as saints, including Gelasius I (492-496), the last African pontiff. His successor, Anastasius II (496-498), was not sainted. His attempts at conciliation with the heretic Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople and his followers divided the Church into factions for and against this endeavour. When Anastasius died suddenly in 498, he was succeeded by the anti-conciliation Pope Symmachus, and his reputation took a knock, to the point that in the Middle Ages — after the schism with the Eastern Church — Anastasius was rather unkindly regarded as a “traitor”.

Asked and answered in the September 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine