Saint Sylvester, Pope of Rome

Sylvester was a Roman, ordained priest by Pope Marcellinus before the persecution of Diocletian. In 314, two years after Constantine's victory at the Milvian Bridge, he became bishop of Rome and led the Roman Church through its first years of peace. He sent legates to the Council of Arles in 314 and, being too old to travel, to the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325.

His Life, written long after him, is full of legend: it tells that he shut a dragon into a cave under the Tarpeian Rock and debated with Jewish scholars before Constantine and his mother Helena. It also says he had Christians call the first day of the week the Lord's Day. Sylvester died on 31 December 335 and was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla in Rome.