Alexander I of Rome

The holy Hieromartyr Alexander I of Rome was bishop of Rome at the beginning of the second century. The Orthodox Church commemorates him as a hieromartyr on 16 March. Almost nothing certain is known of his life.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons counts him as the fifth bishop of Rome after Saint Peter, successor of Evaristus. Eusebius of Caesarea says that he shepherded the Church for ten years and died in the third year of the Emperor Hadrian. The years of his pontificate are given differently: about 109 to 119, 107 to 116, or 106 to 115. The Liber Pontificalis, a later writing, calls him a Roman by birth, from the Caput Tauri district, and credits him with liturgical customs such as blessing houses with water and salt and a prayer added to the Canon of the Liturgy. Historians regard these reports as unreliable, and the letters circulated under his name are apocryphal.

Neither Irenaeus nor Eusebius speaks of his martyrdom. The OCA synaxarion says he was burned alive on 3 May 119 by order of the Emperor Hadrian. The Liber Pontificalis confuses him with another martyr of the same name, buried on the Via Nomentana seven miles from Rome with Eventius and Theodulus on 3 May. Nothing more than the names of these three is known. A later tradition makes Alexander the converter of the governor Hermes. His remains are said to have been moved to Freising in Bavaria in 834.