The Catacomb of Callixtus in Rome was used as an underground burial chamber for Christians during the third century AD. It was also a place where they congregated for worship to avoid detection since Roman soldiers considered it haunted and stayed away. The catacomb later fell into disuse, and its entrance became overgrown. A nineteenth century archeologist digging in a nearby garbage dump came upon an ancient gravestone marker for a Christian martyr. He widened the search and found entry to the hidden catacomb, where he unearthed a marble stone broken into four pieces with the engraved Greek letters “Fabian, Bishop, Martyr.” Fabian (d. 250 A.D.) was a farmer who traveled to Rome to observe the church selection process for a new bishop. Many capable names were put forward as the next Bishop of Rome.
A church historian, Eusebius, writing a hundred years later, recorded that a dove flew through an open window during the deliberations and landed on Fabian’s head. People interpreted it as a sign that God had anointed Fabian for the role, much as the Holy Spirit descended like a dove upon Jesus at his baptism. Fabian ably served as bishop for fourteen years. One of his Christian contemporaries, Cyprian, regarded him “an incomparable man, the glory of whose deeds correlated to the holiness of his life.” When Decius became Roman Emperor in 249, he issued an edict requiring everyone to pay homage to the Roman gods in the presence of his commanders. Anyone who refused was punished and most often killed. Some Christians fled, and others acquiesced, but Fabian and others like him held their ground and refused to bow to Roman gods. It’s unclear why Decius ordered the edict–perhaps the growing popularity of Jesus’ followers had something to do with it. Fabian was imprisoned for his defiance and died a martyr. Decius’ rule was short-lived, as he died in battle a year later. How ironic that a successor to Decius’ throne, Constantine, decreed Christianity as the empire’s official religion a generation later. A third-century prayer during Fabian’s era that was included in the Old Gallican Sacramentary leads us to pray for brave patience and spiritual strength: