Telesphorus Pope and Martyr[1]

         ST TELESPHORUS, who figures in the list of Popes as the seventh bishop of Rome, is said to have been a Greek by birth. Towards the year 126 he succeeded St   Sixtus I, and saw the havoc which the persecution of Hadrian made in the church. "He ended his life by a glorious martyrdom "(c. A.D. 136), says Eusebius, and he is the first one of the successors of St Peter whom St Irenaeus and other early writers refer to as a martyr. The ordinances attributed to him in the Liber Pontificalis e.g. that the Mass of Christmas -a feast that did not then exist - should be celebrated at midnight, cannot with any probability be ascribed to his pontificate. St Telesphorus is commemorated today in the Mass and Office of the vigil of the Epiphany.