Pope Alexander I


 * English name - Saint Alexander I
 * Birth name - Alexander
 * Term start - ca. 106
 * Term end - ca. 115
 * Predecessor - Evaristus
 * Successor - Sixtus I
 * Birthdate - unknown date
 * Birthplace - Rome, Italy
 * death date - ca. 115
 * Death place - Rome, Italy

Pope Saint Alexander I was Bishop of Rome from about 106 to 115. The Holy See's Annuario Pontificio (2008) identifies him as a Roman who reigned from 108 or 109 to 116 or 119. Some believe he suffered martyrdom under the Roman Emperor Trajan or Hadrian, but this is improbable. In the article on Saint Alexander I in the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia, Thomas Shahan judges inaccurate the tradition that this Pope inserted into the Roman Canon the narration of the Last Supper (the Qui pridie). Pope Alexander I is also said to have introduced the use of blessing water mixed with salt for the purification of Christian homes from evil influences, and the custom of mixing water with the sacramental wine. This too is considered unlikely.

In some editions of the Roman Missal the Saint Alexander commemorated on 3 May is identified with Pope Alexander I. This identification is not found in the Tridentine Missal promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570. Since nothing is known of the Saints Alexander, Eventius and Theodulus of May 3 other than their names and the facts that they were martyred and were buried at the seventh milestone of the Via Nomentana on that day, the one whose name coincided with that of a pope was identified with the Pope, as has happened also in other cases: a martyr named Felix was even confused with Antipope Felix II. The identification of the martyr Alexander with the Pope was removed from the Roman Calendar by Pope John XXIII in 1960.

His remains are said to have been transferred to Freising in Bavaria, Germany in AD [834]].