Eutychian of Rome

Eutychian of Rome was bishop of Rome in the last quarter of the third century. According to the Liber Pontificalis he shepherded the Church from 4 January 275 until his death on 7 December 283, though Eusebius of Caesarea gives him only ten months. The sources preserve very little about him.

His epitaph was found in the catacomb of Saint Callixtus on the Appian Way, and from it we know that the pope came from Luni in Etruria. Nothing more is known with certainty of his life. The period was one of relative peace for the Church of Rome, so historians think it likely that he died a natural death. The Roman calendar of the fourth century remembers him on 7 December in its list of bishops, not among the martyrs.

The Liber Pontificalis says that he allowed grapes and beans to be blessed at the altar and that he buried 324 martyrs with his own hands. Many historians doubt these reports and consider them to belong to a later time.

He was buried in the crypt of the popes in the catacomb of Saint Callixtus. In 1659 his relics were given to Bishop Filippo Casoni of Florence, who left them by will to Sarzana, the town of the region regarded as the pope's homeland.

An English-⁠language Orthodox calendar commemorates him on 8 December as a martyr, and the West on 7 December.