STEPHEN I, POPE, saint. — He is commemorated in the *Depositio Episcoporum* on 2 Aug. as buried in the cemetery of Callistus. On the same date and at the same place he is also recalled by the *Sacramentarium Leonianum* (with only his name), by the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum*, and by the *Liber Pontificalis*; the itineraries *de locis* and those of Malmesbury indicate that he was buried on the Via Latina, confusing him with the Protomartyr of the same name to whom a church was dedicated on that road.
The *Sacramentarium Gregorianum* and the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum* describe him as a martyr, a title unknown to the ancient Roman liturgical tradition; this dignity was attributed to him in the 6th century by the author of the *Passio* (BHL, 7845), who confused the details of St Stephen’s life with the death of Pope Sixtus II (q.v.). He was elected on 12 May 254, and his brief pontificate was troubled by controversies in Spain, Gaul, and Africa. The Spanish bishops Basilides of León and Astorga, and Martial of Mérida, had been deposed by their colleagues as *libellatici*. Basilides, however, unable to accept the deposition, went to Rome and succeeded in convincing Stephen of his innocence, obtaining rehabilitation. The Spanish then appealed to St Cyprian, who at the Synod of 254, contrary to Stephen’s sentence, declared the two bishops unworthy and deposed them. To St Cyprian also turned Faustinus, Bishop of Lyons, after he had vainly accused his colleague Marcian of Arles before Stephen of being a Novatianist. St Cyprian then wrote a strong and urgent letter to Stephen urging him to act energetically to safeguard ecclesiastical discipline and to depose Marcian. The final issue was the dispute between Cyprian himself (q.v.) and Stephen regarding the baptism administered by heretics, which in Rome, Egypt, and Palestine was not repeated, unlike the practice in Syria, Asia Minor, and especially in Africa. The question, already agitated in the 2nd century, became more heated in the 3rd; several African councils had proposed their own usage as the only legitimate one, and the decisions of that of 255–56 were communicated to Stephen for his acceptance. The Pope refused to receive the African legates and moreover wrote a letter to St Cyprian and the churches of the East, in which he asserted the legitimacy of the Roman usage to which all were bound to conform. St Cyprian in September 256 convened a new synod in which 87 bishops reaffirmed the previous decisions on the matter. The death of Stephen, which occurred on 2 Aug. 257, put an end to the unfortunate controversy, and the persecution of Valerian, which broke out shortly afterwards, raised other problems to be resolved.
STEPHEN [II]. — A Roman priest, elected at the death of Zachary between 16 and 23 March 752, but who died four days later, before *consecratio*, then required to be considered pope.
Indeed the *Liber Pontificalis* (I, p. 440), which for this period is a contemporary source, and the most ancient catalogues do not regard him as such; nevertheless, some still consider him a true pope, thus increasing by one the ordinal number of the popes of the same name. Since historically and juridically Stephen cannot be considered a pope, he has been removed from our chronology (q.V. POPE).