Hieromartyr Hieromartyr Clement I, Pope of Rome

Pope St. Clement I of Rome, according to tradition born to a noble Roman family around 35 AD, was a disciple of the Apostles Peter and Paul and became the fourth Bishop of Rome in the late 1st century — the first of the "Apostolic Fathers," Christian writers who had personally known the Apostles. His genuine surviving work, the Epistle to the Corinthians, is among the oldest Christian texts outside the New Testament canon.

Orthodox tradition holds that under Emperor Trajan he was exiled to the stone quarries of Tauric Chersonesus, where he converted many pagans and prisoners, and was subsequently martyred by drowning with an anchor tied to his neck around 101 AD — the anchor became his iconographic symbol, and he is venerated as patron of sailors.

Eastern tradition also numbers him among the Seventy Apostles, identifying him with the Clement mentioned by Paul in Philippians 4:3, though modern scholars generally regard this identification as traditional rather than historically established. His relics were later recovered by Sts. Cyril and Methodius and translated partly to Rome, partly to Kyiv.