Saint Pontianus. Pope And Martyr. The First Pope To Abdicate. Feast Day 19 November.

Text is from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

Saint Pontianus.
   Pope And Martyr.
   Feast Day 19 November.

Simple.

Red Vestments.

Pope Saint Pontianus was deported to Sardinia with the Priest, Hippolytus, by order of The Emperor Alexander.

He was scourged to death in 235 A.D.

Mass: Státuit.
Gospel: Nihil est.

The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia.

Pope Pontian (Latin: Pontianus; died October 235 A.D.) was Pope from 21 July 230 A.D. to 28 September 235 A.D.

In 235 A.D., during the Persecution of Christians in the Reign of Emperor Maximinus Thrax, Pope Pontian was arrested and sent to the island of Sardinia. He resigned to make the Election of a new Pope possible.

A little more is known of Pope Pontian than his predecessors, apparently from a lost Papal Chronicle that was available to the compiler of the Liberian Catalogue of Bishops of Rome, written in the 4th-Century A.D. 

The Liber Pontificalis states that he was a Roman citizen and that his father’s name was Calpurnius. Early-Church historian Eusebius wrote that he Reigned for six years.

Pontian’s Pontificate was initially relatively peaceful under the Reign of the tolerant Emperor, Severus Alexander. He presided over the Roman Synod which approved Origen's expulsion and deposition by the Alexandrian Bishop, Demetrius, in 230 A.D. or 231 A.D. According to Eusebius, the next Emperor, Maximinus, overturned his predecessor’s policy of tolerance towards Christianity. 

Both Pope Pontian and the Anti-Pope, Hippolytus of Rome, were arrested and exiled to labour in the mines of Sardinia, generally regarded as a death sentence.

In light of his sentence, Pontian resigned as Bishop (the first Papal Renunciation), so as to allow an orderly transition in the Church of Rome, on 28 September 235 A.D. This date was recorded in the Liberian Catalogue and is notable for being the first full date of a Papal Reign given by contemporaries. 

This action ended a Schism that had existed in The Church for eighteen years. He was beaten to death with sticks. Neither Hippolytus nor Pontian survived, possibly reconciling with one another there, or in Rome, before their deaths. Pontian died in October 235 A.D.

Pope Fabian had the bodies of both Pontian and Hippolytus brought back to Rome in 236 A.D. or 237 A.D., and the former buried in the Papal Crypt in the Catacomb of Callixtus, on the Appian Way. 

The slab covering his tomb was discovered in 1909. On it, is inscribed in Greek: Ποντιανός Επίσκ (Pontianus Episk; in English, Pontianus Bishop). The inscription "Μάρτυρ", “MARTUR” had been added in another hand.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church and the General Roman Calendar of 1969, Pontian and Hippolytus are Commemorated jointly on 13 August. In those Catholic Communities which use a Historical Calendar, such as the General Roman Calendar of 1960, Pontian’s Feast Day is Celebrated on 19 November.