Pope Liberius
?–366 CE · Rome
Liberius governed during the height of the Arian crisis under the pro-Arian emperor Constantius II. Refusing initially to condemn Athanasius, he was exiled to Thrace around 355. Under pressure, he reportedly signed an ambiguous creedal formula and abandoned Athanasius before returning to Rome—an episode much debated, since it complicates claims of papal doctrinal steadfastness. The Arian antipope Felix II had been installed in his absence. Liberius is the first pope not venerated as a saint in the Western calendar. Tradition links him to founding the basilica that became Santa Maria Maggiore.
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RomeרומאItaly
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
Rome in this era
Under Constantine and his successors, Rome flourished as a Christian capital alongside Constantinople, with its bishop asserting primacy; Pope Leo I's 'Tome' was decisive at the Council of Chalcedon (451), and the city saw the construction of great basilicas including St. Peter's.
About Rome
Rome, on the Tiber in central Italy, grew from an Iron Age settlement into the capital of the Roman Republic and then of an empire that by the 1st century CE ruled the whole Mediterranean. Its Jewish community, attested from the 2nd century BCE, is among the oldest in Europe. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul died there, and the city became the seat of the popes. After the Western Empire ended in 476 it passed to Gothic kings, to Byzantium and then to papal rule as capital of the Papal States, until it became the capital of unified Italy in 1871. Vatican City, independent since 1929, lies within it.
In Rome at the same time
Pope St. Damasus I, Pope St. Siricius, Ambrose of Milan, Rufinus of Aquileia, Jerome, Pope St. Julius I
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope Liberius’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Pope St. Damasus I, Pope St. Siricius, Ambrose of Milan, Rufinus of Aquileia, Jerome, Pope St. Julius I
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope Liberius’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.