SIRICIUS, Pope, Saint. - Of Roman origin, son of Tiburtius, he was a lector and deacon under Pope Liberius and then under Damasus, 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 Ursinus, who had already stirred up a schism in the time of Damasus, but Valentinian II sided with S. and Ursinus had to withdraw.
Modest, timid, liberal, beneficent and a lover of peace, as the funeral eulogy placed on his tomb attests, his pontificate passed in a great political calm, of which he took advantage to extend his pastoral care to all the churches, intervening wherever his authority was necessary and practically implementing that primacy which, already recognized in theory, had nevertheless not always been respected in the preceding centuries. S. is the first Pope to legislate on his own, without consulting anyone, over the whole Church, and to order that his decisions be faithfully observed; he is considered the first author of decretals that have the same authority as the decisions and canons of councils.
The first of these acts was the letter he wrote in Feb. 385 to Himerius, bishop of Tarragona, responding to the questions that that bishop had addressed to Pope Damasus. In it S. clearly and explicitly affirms the primacy and authority of the Pope over the whole Church, establishing that his ordinances on the Baptism of converted Arians, on the time for conferring Baptism, on the gradual conferring of sacred Orders, on the continence of presbyters and deacons, on those to be chosen for the episcopate, etc., have universal force under penalty of excommunication, and therefore charges Himerius to make them known to all the bishops so that the excuse of ignorance may not be adduced. During his pontificate he then held several synods, among which are important 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 Jovinian together with six other presbyters; the sentence was communicated to the bishop of Milan, where those men had taken refuge hoping for 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 worked to pacify the Church of Antioch, torn by divisions since the time of the Arian controversy. Even more so in the West, where he intervened both to extinguish the Priscillianist schism of Spain and the Felician schism of the Gauls. No less active was his solicitude for the Churches of Illyricum, where he appointed Bishop Anicius of Thessalonica as his vicar with the right to consecrate the bishops of the region. Under his pontificate the basilica of St. Paul (v.) was rebuilt, with five naves, changing its orientation; those of St. Pudentiana and St. Clement were erected. His name is also remembered for works near the tombs of Sts. Felix and Adauctus in Commodilla (v.). He died on 26 Nov. 390 and was buried in the basilica of St. Sylvester, in the cemetery of Priscilla (v.), on the Via Salaria nuova, where the pilgrims of the 7th century venerated him. His name is found in the Martirologio geronimiano; in the Romano it was inserted in 1748 by Benedict XIV, who also wrote a dissertation to demonstrate his sanctity.
Bibliography8 works
Agostino Amore