Saint Fabian

Eusebius tells the story of his election. The Roman Christians had gathered to choose a successor to Anterus, and Fabian, a layman visiting from the countryside, was in the crowd with no thought of the office when a dove flew down and settled on his head; the assembly, remembering the baptism of Jesus, acclaimed him at once. Whatever happened, the choice was a good one. Fabian governed the Roman church for fourteen years of peace under Gordian III and Philip the Arab, and the institution that faced Decius in 250 was largely his work.

The Liber Pontificalis credits him with dividing the city into seven districts, each under a deacon with a subdeacon and notaries, and with the first building work in the cemeteries; the districts, at least, are the framework Cornelius describes a year after his death. He brought the bodies of Pontian and Hippolytus home from Sardinia and buried them with honor, closing the schism in the grave. He corresponded with Origen, who wrote to him defending his orthodoxy. Cyprian of Carthage, who never met him, called him "an incomparable man" whose glory had matched "the integrity of his administration."

In January 250 the emperor Decius ordered every inhabitant of the empire to sacrifice to the gods, and Fabian was among the first arrested. He died on 20 January, whether executed or in prison is not recorded, and was buried in the papal crypt of Callixtus, where his epitaph, "Fabian, bishop, martyr," survives with the last word added by a later hand. Decius is said to have remarked that he would sooner hear of a rival emperor than of a new bishop in Rome, and for fourteen months there was none.