Pope St. Sylvester I

Pope from 314 to 335, Sylvester governed the Church through the dramatic transition from persecution to imperial favor under Constantine. Under his pontificate the great basilicas of Rome rose — St. Peter's, the Lateran, St. Croce in Gerusalemme — and the Council of Nicaea defined the divinity of Christ. He is remembered on December 31, the last day of the year.

Sylvester was a Roman priest who had lived through the terrible persecution of Diocletian and witnessed the sudden reversal that Constantine's Edict of Milan brought in 313. Elected bishop of Rome the following year, he inherited a Church emerging from the catacombs into the daylight of public life, and he had to navigate the unfamiliar challenge of an emperor who wished to be the Church's patron.

Though he did not attend the Council of Nicaea in person — sending legates in his place — the creed promulgated there bore the authority of his see. His long pontificate of twenty-one years was a quiet stewardship of a Church being remade. In many European countries, New Year's Eve is still called "Silvester Night," linking the turn of the calendar to the memory of a pope who presided over one of history's great turning points.