Originally published at National Catholic Register
SAINTS & ART: From the Edict of Milan to the Council of Nicaea, St. Sylvester’s papacy marked a turning point for Christianity.
If you had to remember two things about St. Sylvester, they are:
He’s the last saint in the calendar year, his feast on Dec. 31.He was the first full papal reign under the Edict of Toleration, ending the persecution of and legalizing Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Sylvester was pope from 314-335, a 21-year reign (in contrast to the two-and-a-half-year reign of his predecessor, St. Miltiades. Miltiades was pope when Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which gave Christianity a legal status in the Roman Empire, but Sylvester was the first pope fully to reign under its benefits. Remember that a decade earlier, the Empire was in the throes of the Diocletian Persecution, the last but rather severe persecution of the Church, generating martyrs.
The shift from political persecution put a focus on Church unity. The Church was beset by the Arian heresy. Arianism denied that Jesus was, in the later words of the Council of Chalcedon, truly God and truly human. For the Arians, Jesus was some kind of hybrid: more than man but not equal
