Saint Zephyrinus was elected as the successor of Pope Victor I. Pope Zephyrinus who led the Church for two decades was born in Rome. He was elected as the Pope in 198 or 199. The reign of Pope Zephyrinus was a period of great suffering and crisis in the Church.

As soon as Pope Zephyrinus took over the ecclesiastical administration Roman Emperor Septimius Severus unleashed a massive persecution of Christians. The said persecution latere for nine years from AD202 till 211. Pope Zephyrinus, exercised his pastoral care at the height of this persecution, encouraging his flock to persevere in their faith and supporting them in their sufferings.

Another great challenge that Pope Zephyrinus had to face during his reign was the various heresies that arose against the Church. He was entrusted with the great duty and responsibility of saving the Holy Church, the church members and the true faith from such erroneous theories. It was a time when the heresies of Marcianism, Adoptionism, Montanism, and Modelism (Sabellianism) that plagued the Church gained strength.

Saint Victor I, the predecessor of Pope Zephyrinus, condemned the heresy of Adoptionism and excommunicated its propagator, Theodotus of Tanner, but Theodotus did not refrain from spreading his teachings, but spread the said heresy with more force to more places and so on.

After Theodotus was excommunicated, he established his own church and organized his followers. In order to gain more acceptance for their church, a priest named Natalius, who was acceptable in the church and society, was bought and crowned by the heretics as a bishop. Natalius was a person who suffered a lot for the Church and for the faith. Therefore, according to the historian Eusebius, God was not ready to lose Natalius. Several times he received visions of angels asking him to repent and return to the Church. But Natalius, mesmerized by the seductive promises made by Theodotus and his companions, at first turned his back on such visions. But one-night Natalius, realized that the angel's message with severe whippings was really Christ, repented and came out of the sect.

But the impact of Adoptionism and other heresies in Rome, the Church, and the faith was not small. The said heresies created a havoc in the church. The reign of Pope Zephyrinus was a time when the false teaching that Christ is not really the Son of God, that the Holy Trinity is not three persons and only three attributes of one essence (Sabellianism) was spreading in the Church. Pope Zephyrinus declared all these teachings as false and defined faith by adhering to the teachings of the apostles. Callistus, who later became Pope, had the support and assistance in these efforts. However, his approach to heresy did not please many.

Hippolytus and Tertullian strongly criticized Pope Zephyrinus and suggested that he was weak in dealing with the heresies in question and should have reacted more forcefully to do away with such heresies. But the ecclesiastical historian Eusebius records that Pope Zephyrinus cautiously and zealously opposed heresies and blasphemers and defended faith.

In order to solve the heresies and problems that plagued the church, he formulated a creed emphasizing the divinity of Christ and unequivocally declaring that he was different from God the Father. But the Church had to wait another fifty years to give theological language to this declaration of faith. It was during the time of Pope Zephyrinus that the learned Tertullian abandoned faith and accepted the heresy of Montanism. This caused great distress to the Pope.

Pope Zephyrinus was a person who had to endure a lot of mental, spiritual and physical sufferings. Ending his two-decade-long reign, he passed away in 217.

Considering his contributions to the Church, Pope Zephyrinus is regarded by church historians and theologians as one of the chief defenders of Christianity.
-edit & trans. SM