Anacletus

Saint Anacletus, also called Cletus, was bishop of Rome in the second half of the first century, after Saint Peter and Saint Linus. He is honoured as a saint of the undivided Church, and very little certain is known of his life.

Saint Irenaeus and the historian Eusebius place him after Linus and before Clement. The name appears in the sources as Cletus, Anacletus or Anencletus, the last meaning "blameless". The Liberian Catalogue counts two persons, but Irenaeus, Eusebius and Blessed Augustine seem to mean one, and that is the usual view today. The years of his episcopate are uncertain; 80 to 92 or 76 to 88 are cited, and tradition gives him twelve years.

Nothing is known of his earlier life. Tradition says he was a Roman by birth, while the Liber Pontificalis makes him the son of an Antiochus and a native of Athens. According to tradition he divided Rome into twenty-⁠five parishes, but historians do not regard this as proven. He is said to have died a martyr, perhaps under Domitian, around the year 91. The letters circulated under his name and published by Migne are not his.

His name, as Cletus, stands in the Roman Canon of the Liturgy. The Roman calendar commemorated him on 26 April as Cletus and on 13 July as Anacletus; since 1960 only 26 April remains.