died 3 January 236
A bishop of Rome who suffered martyrdom for Christ in the year 236.
The Holy Hieromartyr Antherus, Pope of Rome
Antherus (also rendered Anterus; in Greek, Antheros) was Bishop of Rome in the early third century, holding the office from 21 November 235 until his death on 3 January 236 — a pontificate of roughly forty-three days, among the shortest on record. He is venerated in the Orthodox Church as a hieromartyr and hierarch.
He succeeded Pope Pontian, who had been deported to the mines of Sardinia under the persecution of the Emperor Maximinus the Thracian. The OCA Synaxarion records that Antherus, elected in Pontian's place, soon likewise accepted suffering and death for Christ in the year 236.
Sources differ on the manner of his death: some hold that he was martyred on account of his effort to gather and preserve the records of the martyrs, while others judge that he died in less dramatic circumstances during the same persecution. He was buried in the papal crypt of the Catacomb of Callixtus on the Appian Way in Rome.
By sharing in the ways of the Apostles,
you became a successor to their throne.
Through the practice of virtue,
you found the way to divine contemplation, O inspired one of God;
by teaching the word of truth without error,
you defended the Faith, even to the shedding of your blood.
Hieromartyr Antherus entreat Christ God to save our souls.
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
According to later tradition, Antherus was the son of a man named Romulus and was born at Petilia Policastro in Calabria, in southern Italy. Scholars have suggested that he was of Greek origin, and some have proposed that his name may indicate he was a freed slave.
Antherus held the see of Rome for only about forty-three days. During this brief period he is recorded as having ordained one bishop for the city of Fondi.
He is particularly remembered for promoting greater care in the searching out and preservation of the acts of the martyrs — building on the work attributed to Pope Clement I, who had appointed notaries to collect such records exactly. Some scholars hold that this very initiative led to his martyrdom; others regard his death as having occurred without drama amid the persecution of Maximinus the Thracian.
Antherus was buried in the papal crypt of the Catacomb of Callixtus on the Appian Way in Rome, and he is possibly the first pope interred in that Crypt of the Popes — a fact that gives his burial particular significance in the catacomb's history.
The catacomb and its papal crypt were rediscovered in 1854 by the pioneering Italian archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi, who found fragments of a Greek epitaph bearing the text reading 'Antherus, bishop'; the inscription appears incomplete, and may originally have included a designation as martyr that is no longer legible.
His ashes were later transferred to the Church of Saint Sylvester in the Campus Martius, where they were discovered on 17 November 1595 during the rebuilding of that church under Pope Clement VIII.
The Orthodox Church commemorates Antherus as a hieromartyr; the OCA Synaxarion lists him on 5 August, alongside Hieromartyr Fabian, Pope of Rome, who buried the bodies of martyrs and succeeded Antherus in the see.
Other dates are observed elsewhere: the Russian Orthodox Church keeps his feast on 18 August, while the Roman Catholic Church commemorates him on 3 January, the day of his death.
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