Lentorama 2018: Second String Saints

Day 5- Pope Urban I

Not much is known of Urban's third century papacy, other than it's the first papacy whose dates can be determined through primary sources. Not much was thought to have happened during his tenure, other than some agitating from schismatics. The Romans were laying off the Christians at the time, so the lack of persecution didn't hurt.

There are various acts ascribed to Urban, most notably that he baptized St. Cecilia and that he had several sets of silver liturgical vessels made for local churches, but the sources were written well after his death. It also looks like that there was another bishop named Urban in the area at the time, and that things he did were incorrectly ascribed to the pope. So Urban I may have gotten his sainthood primarily for being pope during a decidedly chill time (relatively) to be a Christian. There are apparently no shortage of saints with this sort of story.