Saint Cyprian of Carthage

c. 210–258 · 3rd c. · 2 works

Cyprian of Carthage (c. 200–258) was bishop of Carthage and one of the foremost Latin Fathers of the third-century Church. Born to a wealthy pagan family in North Africa, he was a celebrated teacher of rhetoric before his conversion, and after his election as bishop he became the leading ecclesiastical figure of the African Church. He died a martyr.

A trained orator, he converted as a grown man and within about two years was made bishop of Carthage around 248. He led the African Church through the Decian persecution, governing from hiding by letter, and afterward through bitter disputes over the readmission of the lapsed and the validity of baptism by heretics, in which he clashed with the bishop of Rome.

His principal works include the treatises On the Unity of the Catholic Church and On the Lapsed, along with works on the Lord's Prayer and on mortality, and a large body of letters documenting the controversies and pastoral concerns of his episcopate.

He was beheaded at Carthage in 258 under the emperor Valerian, the first bishop-martyr of Africa. He is venerated as a hieromartyr, and his Orthodox commemoration is kept on 31 August.

Sources: Orthodox Church in America — Hieromartyr Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage · Encyclopædia Britannica — St. Cyprian