Free English Translation
The Council of Rome under Stephen, on the Rebaptism of Converts
Concilium Romanum sub S. Stephano Celebratum
~1 min read · by Council of Rome
About The Council of Rome under Stephen, on the Rebaptism of Converts
This brief notice records the decision of a provincial synod held at Rome under Pope Stephen, who reigned from 254 to 257 AD, at the height of the controversy over the rebaptism of converts. Cyprian's council in Africa had ruled that anyone baptized outside the Catholic Church, whatever their prior communion, must be rebaptized upon entering it. The Roman synod under Stephen rejected this ruling as made without sufficient warrant, upholding instead the validity of baptism administered outside the Church. Though only a single sentence survives, it preserves Rome's side of one of the sharpest disputes to divide the mid-third-century Church.
By Council of Rome. Collected in Patrologia Latina, Volume 3.
A divine and sacred provincial synod was gathered at Rome by Stephen, holy martyr and pope; it repudiated those who in the African synod had without reason conceded that those who came from any heresy whatsoever to the Catholic Church should be rebaptized.
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