Saint Clement I, Pope and Martyr

Clement was bishop of Rome at the end of the 1st century, by the ancient lists the third or fourth after Peter. About 96 the Roman church sent a long letter to the church of Corinth, where younger members had deposed their presbyters, urging peace and order; ancient writers knew it as Clement's letter, and it is one of the oldest Christian writings outside the New Testament. Irenaeus says Clement had seen the apostles. A later account says he was exiled under Trajan to the Crimea, where he worked in the quarries, and was drowned with an anchor tied to his neck. In the 9th century Cyril and Methodius found relics believed to be his near Chersonesus and brought them to Rome, to the church of San Clemente.