VITTORE XVIII, POPE, saint. – An African and son of Felix, according to the Liber Pontificalis, he was the thirteenth bishop of Rome after St Peter, successor of Eleutherius. The Liberian Catalogue assigns him a reign of about 9 years (c. 186–97?); Eusebius, however, followed by St Jerome, gives 10 years (180–201?; Hist. eccl., V, 22, 28). He died on 28 July and was buried in the Vatican. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on that day as a martyr.
During the pontificate of Victor, alongside the previously dominant Greek-Oriental element, the Latin element gained strength in Rome; St Jerome (De viris ill., 34) considers Victor to have been the first Latin writer. To him Marcia, the favourite of Commodus, turned for the list of Christians deported to Sardinia who were freed by the priest Hyacinth (Hippolytus, Philosoph., IX, 12). Of energetic and resolute character, fully conscious of his authority, Victor was the vigilant guardian of traditional doctrine and liturgical practice, threatened by heretics and recalcitrant bishops who were sowing division and confusion even within Rome. He did not hesitate to excommunicate Theodotus the Tanner, author of the Adoptionist error (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 28). He addressed the question of the celebration of Easter: the Churches of Asia, following the example of the apostles, celebrated it on the 14th day of the moon, while the Roman Church and the West kept the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Victor, wishing to impose uniformity, decreed that those who did not follow the Roman usage should be excluded from communion. This severity provoked protests, even from bishops like Polycrat of Ephesus, and the pope was accused of being precipitate and tyrannical. Irenaeus of Lyons intervened to calm the controversy (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V, 24).
VITTORE XIX, POPE, s
under his protection to Queen Agnes. In 1057 he convened at the Lateran, under his presidency, a very important synod (18 April). He did not, however, remain in Rome, but went to Tuscany where a severe fever overtook him near Arezzo and carried him to the grave (28 July 1057).