SIRICIO, POPE, saint. - Of Roman origin, son of Tiburzio, he was lector and deacon under Pope Liberio and then under Damasco, whom he succeeded in the pontificate at the end of 384 (15, or 22 or 29 Dec.). His election was disturbed by the intrigues of Ursino, who had already provoked a schism in the time of Damasco, but Valentiniano II took S.’s side and Ursino was obliged to withdraw.
Modest, timid, generous, beneficent, and peace-loving, as the funerary eulogy placed upon his tomb attests, his pontificate passed in great political calm, which he took advantage of to extend his pastoral care to all the churches, intervening wherever his authority was necessary and practically implementing that primacy which, though already recognized in theory, had not always been respected in the preceding centuries. S. was the first Pope to legislate alone, without consulting anyone, for the whole Church, and to order that his decisions be faithfully observed; he is considered the first author of decretals having the same authority as conciliar decisions and canons.
The first of these acts was the letter he wrote in Feb. 385 to Imerio, bishop of Tarragona, answering the questions which that bishop had addressed to Pope Damasco. In it S. clearly and explicitly affirms the primacy and authority of the Pope over the whole Church, establishing that his ordinances concerning the Baptism of converted Arians, the time for conferring Baptism, the gradual conferral of Holy Orders, the continence of presbyters and deacons, those to be elected to the episcopate, etc., should have universal validity under penalty of excommunication; he therefore charged Imerio to make them known to all the bishops, so that the excuse of ignorance might not be alleged. During his pontificate he also held several synods, among which important ones were that of 386, in which he established,
besides reaffirming ancient decrees, that no bishop could be consecrated without the prior approval of the Apostolic See, and that of 390, in which he condemned Gioviniano together with six other presbyters; the sentence was communicated to the bishop of Milano, where they had taken refuge in the hope of protection from the Emperor, so that it might be executed there.
His activity embraced both the churches of the West and those of the East. There he laboured to pacify the Church of Antiochia, torn by divisions since the time of the Arian controversy. Still more, however, in the West, where he intervened both to extinguish the Priscillianist schism of Spain and the Felician schism of the Galilei. No less active was his concern for the Churches of Illyricum, where he appointed Bishop Anicio of Tessalonica as his vicar, with the right to consecrate the bishops of the region. Under his pontificate the basilica of S. Paolo (v.) was rebuilt, with five naves and a changed orientation; those of S. Pudentiana and S. Clemente were erected. His name is also remembered for works near the tombs of ss. COMMODIANO (v.). He died on 26 Nov. 390 and was buried in the basilica of S. Silvestro, Priscilla (v.), on the Via Salaria nuova, where he was venerated by pilgrims of the 7th cent. His name is found in the Martirologio geronimiano; in the Romano it was inserted in 1748 by Benedetto XIV, who also wrote a dissertation to demonstrate his sanctity.
BBL.: Lib. Pont., I, p. 216 ff.; Tillemont, X, pp. 357-67; Benedetto XIV, De nova Martyr. rom. edit., in Opera omnia, XVI, Prato 1746, pp. 378-94; G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae, II, 1, p. 102, n. 30; H. Grisar, Roma alla fine del mondo antico (Italian ed.), I, Roma 1930, pp. 321 ff., 405 ff.; Martyr. Hieronymianum, p. 621 ff.; Martyr. Romanum, p. 547; Fliche-Martin-Fratz, III, pp. 487-95. Agostino Amore