Saint of the day September 16: Saint Cornelius and Saint Cyprian. Catholic Saints

Every September 16 the Church celebrates Pope Saint Cornelius (c.180-253) and Bishop Saint Cyprian (c. 200-258), two friends in Christ concerned with preserving the truth of his message. Together they opposed the errors, confusions and heresies that began to spread since the beginning of the Christian era and that undermined the spiritual health of many members of the Church. Both concluded their lives crowned with the palms of martyrdom.

Pope Cornelius

Cornelius, whose name means “strong as a horn,” was the twenty-first Pope of the Catholic Church. He firmly confronted the heresy of Novatian, a theologian who proclaimed that the Church did not have enough power to forgive the most serious sins. For this theologian and his followers, those called “child“, in Latin, ‘those who have stumbled’, could not be absolved by ecclesiastical authority of any of those faults considered extremely serious. This meant that the Church was not authorized to forgive or welcome back those who, for example, had committed apostasy.

Certainly, because of the cruelty of the persecutions, many Christians had abandoned the faith or renounced it (the sin of apostasy) for fear of the threats of temporal power: torture, prison or death. However, there were many who, having denied Christ, recognized their fault and asked to be admitted back into the Christian community.

Pope Cornelius was the first to raise his voice against Novatian (210-258). The Pontiff maintained that ‘novacianism’ was heretical, since God did not deny his forgiveness to anyone and that there was no fault that could not be compensated by his merciful love. Consequently, the ‘authority to forgive sins’ could be exercised by a qualified minister.

Cornelius ended up excommunicating Novatian, who did not want to rectify himself and chose with his followers the path of schism, becoming ‘antipope’ between the years 251 and 258 by founding ‘the Church of the pure’.

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage

Among those who supported Pope Cornelius in his doctrine on forgiveness was Saint Cyprian, a bishop with whom he had a close friendship.

Cyprian, who was at the head of the see of Carthage (today Tunisia), publicly supported the pontifical position against Novatian, which made him enemies and detractors.

The only true sacrifice

It is worth specifying that Pope Cornelius not only had to suffer from the controversy with Novatian and his intransigent followers, ‘the pure’ (katharoi) or ‘Cathars’: theirs were the times of another bloody persecution, this time, organized by the Roman emperor Decius (249-251).

Cornelius was first sent into exile and later, in the year 253, taken prisoner and sentenced to death by beheading.

For his part, Cyprian, in Carthage, also suffered the harsh years of Decius’s persecution and, after his death, had to suffer a new wave of anti-Christian violence organized by his successor, Valerian.

Cyprian was sentenced to death for refusing to offer sacrifices to the gods, as well as for resisting the prohibition on celebrating the Eucharist and administering the sacraments. When he heard his sentence, he exclaimed: “Thanks be to God!” Like Cornelius, Cyprian was beheaded in September 258.

“Thanks be to God”

The two friends, united by Christ in the pastoral mission, suffered for the sake of faith and left a testimony of fidelity to the revealed Truth, a testimony that they sealed with their own blood.

The names of Cornelius and Cyprian are part of the liturgy, they are specifically mentioned in Eucharistic Prayer I of the Roman Canon, along with other saints and martyrs of the first centuries of Christianity.

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If you want to know more about Pope Saint Cyprian, we recommend this article from the Catholic Encyclopedia: https://ec.aciprensa.com/wiki/Papa_San_Cornelio.

About Saint Cyprian, bishop, and Novacianism: https://ec.aciprensa.com/wiki/San_Cipriano_de_Cartago.