Ecclesiastical Region of Sardinia

I - The origins

The news of the oldest Christian presence in Sardinia concerns a list of condemned to mines in the south-west of the island, prepared by Vittore bishop of Rome at the request of Marcia, a favorite of the emperor Commodus (180-192) and perhaps Christian, from enclose in a letter of release from the emperor himself; the future pope and martyr Callisto I (217-222) also benefited, deported there not because he was a Christian but was convicted of embezzlement. Of the other pardoned, we only know that that sentence depended on their faith. In 235, under Maximin the Thrace, it was the turn of the Roman bishop Pontian to be confined "to Sardinia, an unhealthy island", where he ceased to live after ferocious mistreatment, in an unspecified locality; a few years later, however, the memory of the site of the tomb allowed the transfer of its remains to Rome. The first attestation in Cagliari of a Christian community equipped with the essential articulations of personnel and ministries, led by its own bishop - the first or first of them, probably arrived from Africa - and active in the propagation of the new faith dates back to 314 over forty years of peace enjoyed by Christianity before the persecution of Diocletian (303-305) favored proselytism initiated by the first heralds - mostly from the areas of Rome and Carthage - also in other urban centers of the coast: this is proved by the martyrs, whose cult dates back to the end of the IV century-beginning of the V: Gavino in Porto Torres (Turris Libisonis), Lussorio in Fordongianus (Forum Traiani), Antioco in Sant'Antioco (Sulci), Efisio in Nora, Saturno in Cagliari ; perhaps later is the cult of Simplicius, although certainly attested "in Sardinia" by the Geronymian, in Olbia. Quintasio of Cagliari was among the approximately forty Western bishops summoned by Constantine to the synod of Arles (314). A greater resonance gave to this see Lucifer (353-370) who, together with the Sardinian Eusebio, bishop of Vercelli, was legate of Pope Liberius, first to Constantius II (353) in Arles and then to the council of Milan (355) for the defense of the Nicene orthodoxy opposed by the emperor. Against Arianism, Lucifer showed irreducible opposition even during the exile to which he was condemned by Constantius (355-361) in the south-eastern periphery of the empire: for the occasion he wrote five fiercely polemical pamphlets. He died around 370.