Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/53

 SITTEN

31

SIXTUS

Archives of Mission of Santa Barbara: Records of Mission San Antonio: Sitjar, Vocabularii, in Shea's Library of American Linguistics (New York, 1861); Exoelhardt. The Frannsrnii.-< in California (Harbor Springs, 1S97) ; Bancriift. Cahformn, U l.S.Hn Francisco. 1886).

Zephvrin Lngelhardt. Sitten. See Sion, Diocese of.

Siunia, a titular see, suffragan of Sebastia in Armenia Prima. Siunia is not a town, but a province situatetl between Goghtcha, .\.raxa, and Aghovania, in the pre.sent Russian districts of Chamakha, or Hakvi, and Elisavetpol. The real name should be Sisacan, the Persian form, for 8iunia got its nape from Sisac, the son of Gegham, the fifth .Armenian sovereign. Its first rulers, vassals of the kings of Ar- menia or the shahs of Persia, date back to the fourth century of our era; about 1046 it became an inde- pendent kingdom, but only till 1166. The Church of Siunia was established in the fifth century or per- haps a little earlier. It soon became a metropolis subject to the Catholicos of .\rmenia, and, as we see in a letter of the patriarch Ter Sargis in 1006, it counted twelve crosiers, which must signify twelve sufTragan sees. The archdiocese contained 1400 villages and 28 monasteries. In the ninth cen- tury the metropolitan see was fixed in the convent of Tatlieo, situated between Ouronta and Migri, sixty-two miles south-east of Lake Gokcha. Sep- arated for a brief interval from Noravank, the See of Siunia was reunited to it, but .was definitively sep- arated again in the thirteenth century. In 1837 the Diocese of Siunia was, by order of the Synod of Etchmiadzin, .suppressed and subjected directly to the catholicos under the supervision of the Bishop of Erivan, who had a vicar at Tatheo. The comijlete list of the bishops and metropolitans of Siunia, from the fifth century till the nineteenth century, is known; amongst them we may mention Petros, a writer at the begiiming of the sixth century, and Stephanos Orbelian, the historian of his Church. It is not known why the Roman Curia introduced this episcopal title, which does not appear in any Greek or Latin "Notitia episcopatuum", and was never a suffragan of Sebastia.

Le Qcien, Oriens christianus. I (Paris, 1740), 1443; Brosset, Listes chronologiques des princes et des mHropolites de Sionnie in BuUetin de rAcnitmie des Sciences de Saint-PHersbourg, IV (1862), 497-562; Stephanos Orbelian, Histoire de la Siounie, tr. Bros- 8ET (Saint-Petersburg, 1864).

S. Vailh6.

Sivas. See Sebastia, .\rmenian Catholic Dio- cese OF. Six Days' Work, The. See Hexaemeron.

Sixtus I, Saint, Pope (in the oldest documents, XvsTus is the spelling used for the first three popes of that name), succeeded St. Alexander and was followed by St. Telesphorus. According to the "Liberian Catalogue" of popes, he ruled the Church during the reign of Adrian "a consulatu Xigri et Aproniani usque Vero III et Ambibulo", that is, from 117 to 126. Eusebius, who in his "Chronicon" made use of a cat- alogue of popes different from the one he used in his "llistoria Ecclesiastica", states in his "Chronicon" that Sixtus I was pope from 114 to 124, while in his "History" he makes him rule from 119 to 128. All authorities agree that he reigned about ten years. He was a Rom,an by birth, and his father's name was Pastor. According to the "Liber Pontificalis" (ed. Duchesne, I, 128), he pa.ssed the following three or- dinances: (1) that none but sacred ministers are al- lowed to touch the sacred vessels; (2) that bishops who have been summoned to the Holy See shall, upon their return, not be received by their diocese except on presenting .\postolic letters; (3) that after the Pref- ace in the Mass the priest sh;dl recite the Sand us with the people. The "Felician Catidogue" of ixipes and the various martyrologies give him the title of

martyr. His feast is celebrated on 6 April. He was

buried in the Vatican, beside the tomb of St. Peter. His relics are said to ha\e Iiecii tninsfcrrnl to Alatri in ll:j2, though O. .lozzi (■' 11 corpo di .S. Sislo I., papa e martire rivcndicato alia basilica \'aticana", Rome, 1900) contends that they are still in the Vatican Ba- sihca. Butler (Lives of the Saints, 6 April) states that Clement X gave some of his relics to Cardinal de Retz, who placed them in the Abbey of St. Michael in Lorraine. The Xystus who is commemorated in the Canon of the Mass is Xystus II, not Xystus I.

.4c/a SS.. April. I, 531^; Liber Ponlificalis, ed. Dcchesne, I (Paris, 18S6). 128; Marini, Cenni storici popolari sopra S. Sisto I, papa e martire, e suo culio in Alatri (Foligno, 1884); de Persiis, Del porUificato di S. Sisto I, papa e martire, delta trans~ lazione delle sue reliquie da Roma ecc, memorie (Alatri, 1884); Barmby in Did. Christ. Biog., s. v. Siztus (2) I.

Michael Ott.

Sixtus 11 (Xystus), Saint, Pope, elected 31 Aug., 2.57, martyred at Rome, 6 Aug., 2.58. His origin is unknown. The " Liber Pontificalis " says that he was a Greek by birth, but this is probably a mistake, orig- inating from the false assumption that he was identi- cal with a Greek philosopher of the same name, who was the author of the so-called "Sentences" of Xystus. During the pontificate ol his predecessor, St. Stephen, a sharp dispute had arisen between Rome and the African and Asi- atic Churches concerning then- baptism of hen tics, which hail threatened to eni 1 in a complete rupture between Rome and the Churches of Africa and Asia Minor (see Cyprian of Carthage, Saint). Sixtus II, whom Pontius (Vita Cypriani, cap. xiv) styles a good and peaceful priest {f)onus el padficus sacerdos), was more conciliatory than St. Stephen and restored friendly relations with these Churches, though, like his predecessor, he up- held the Roman usage of not rebaptizing heretics.

Shortly before the pontificate of Sixtus II the Em- peror Valerian issued his first edict of persecution, which made it binding upon the Christians to partici- pate in the national cult of the pagan gods and for- bade them to assemble in the cemeteries, threatening with exile or death whomsoever was found to disobey the order. In some way or other, Sixtus II man- aged to perform his functions as chief pastor of the Christians without being molested by those who w^ere charged with the execution of the imperial edict. But during the first days of August, 2.5s, the emperor i.ssued a new and far more cruel edict ag:iinst the Christians, the import of which has been i)reserved in a letter of St. Cyprian to Succes,sus, the Bishop of Ab- bir Germ.aniciana (Ep. Ixxx). It ordered bishops, priests, and deacons to be summarily put to death ("episcopi et presbyteri et diacones incontinenti ani- madvertantur"). Sixt\is II was one of the first to fall a victim to this imperial enactment ("Xistum in cimiterio animadversum sciatis VIII. id. August! et cum eo diacones quattuor" — Cyprian, Ep. Ixxx). In onler to escape the vigilance of the imperial oflTicers he assembled his flock on (> August at one of the less- known cemeteries, that of Prxlextatus, on the left side