LUCIO I, POPE, saint. — He succeeded Cornelius in September 253. As soon as he was elected, he was exiled, together with a number of the faithful, by the emperor Gallus; he nevertheless remained in exile only a short time, since, following the death of the Emperor and the elevation of Valerian (October 253), he was able to return to Rome. He died the following March, after having governed the Church for only eight months (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 2). He was buried in the cemetery of Callistus on the Via Appia, in the crypt of the popes, where his funerary inscription has been found. In the Depositio episcoporum of the chronographer of 354 he is commemorated on 5 March, whereas the true dies natalis is the 4th, as recorded by the Hieronymian Martyrology.
St. Cyprian, who wrote him a warmly congratulatory letter on his elevation and return from exile, calls him a martyr together with his predecessor Cornelius; it nevertheless seems that the Roman Church did not recognize him as such, since his name does not appear in the Depositio martyrum. According to the testimony of St. Cyprian himself, L. dealt with the question of the lapsi, decreeing that peace and ecclesiastical communion should be granted to them after suitable penance. No document of this kind, however, has been preserved, and the letter now attributed to L., addressed to the bishops of Gaul and Spain, is certainly apocryphal.