Julius I

Julius I was bishop of Rome from 337 to 352. The Church remembers him chiefly because he received at Rome and supported Saint Athanasius the Great and other bishops driven from their sees by the Arian party. He is counted a saint of the undivided Church, and his memory is kept on 12 April.

Election

He was a Roman by birth. He was elected on 6 February 337, after the see had stood vacant for four months following the death of Pope Mark. The reign of Constantine the Great had just ended, and the Church was shaken by the quarrels that followed the Council of Nicaea.

Support for the confessors

The party of Eusebius of Nicomedia had deposed Athanasius of Alexandria again at a synod in Antioch in 341, and sent envoys to Emperor Constans and to Julius to justify what they had done. Julius spoke in favour of Athanasius and invited both sides to bring the case before a synod under his presidency, but the Arian bishops of the East refused. Athanasius, banished from Alexandria a second time, came to Rome, and the synod held there recognised him as a lawful bishop in 342.

Julius wrote to the bishops of the East a letter, preserved by Saint Athanasius, reproaching them for judging without regard for the custom by which Rome should first have been informed. The letter is often cited as one of the earliest witnesses to Rome's claim to be consulted in the cases of bishops. At his urging the Council of Sardica in Illyria was later held. The eastern bishops there, seventy-⁠six in number, soon withdrew to Philippopolis and deposed Julius there, together with Athanasius. The roughly three hundred western bishops who stayed confirmed the decisions of the Roman synod and issued disciplinary canons, among them a ban on moving bishops from one see to another.

After his repose

He built several churches at Rome. He reposed in the Lord on 12 April 352 and was succeeded by Liberius. A letter attributing to him the fixing of 25 December as the date of the Nativity of the Lord is held by historians to be spurious and cannot serve as evidence.