Pope Eleutherius
bishop of Rome from c. 174 to 189
Pope Eleutherius (Greek: Ελευθέριος; died 24 May 189), also known as Eleutherus (Greek: Ελεύθερος), was the bishop of Rome from c. 174 until his death in 189. His pontificate is alternatively dated to 171–185 or 177–193. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church.
He is linked to a number of legends, one of them credited him with receiving a letter from "Lucius, King of Britain".
Life
According to the Liber Pontificalis, he was a Greek born in Nicopolis in Epirus, Greece. His contemporary Hegesippus wrote that he was a deacon of the Roman Church under Pope Anicetus (c. 154–164), and remained so under Pope Soter, whom he succeeded around 174.
Dietary law
The 6th-century recension of Liber Pontificalis ('Book of the Popes') known as the "Felician Catalog" includes additional commentary to the work's earlier entry on Eleutherius. One addition ascribes to Eleutherius the reissuance of a decree: "And he again affirmed that no food should be repudiated by Christians strong in their faith, as God created it, [provided] however that it is sensible and edible." Such a decree might have been issued against early continuations of Jewish dietary law and against similar laws practiced by the Gnostics and Montanists.
“Pope Eleutherius” enters the record as bishop of Rome from c. 174 to 189. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pope, Eleutherius and bishop can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q101090. VIAF identifies the subject as 7774991. The Library of Congress control number is nb2007024691. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pope Eleutherius” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.