Editing Pope Marcellus I (section)

==Pontificate==
According to the ''[[Liber Pontificalis]]'', Marcellus divided the territorial administration of the church into twenty-five districts (tituli), appointing over each a priest, who saw to the preparation of the catechumens for baptism and directed the performance of public penances. The priest was also made responsible for the burial of the dead and for the celebrations commemorating the deaths of the martyrs. The pope also had a new burial-place, the Cœmeterium Novellœ on the Via Salaria (opposite the Catacomb of St. Priscilla), laid out.<ref name="Catholic"/> The ''Liber Pontificalis'' says: "He established a cemetery on the Via Salaria, and he appointed 25 "title" churches as jurisdictions within the city of Rome to provide baptism and penance for the many who were converted among the pagans and burial for the martyrs."<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Loomis|editor1-first=Louise Ropes|title=The Book of the Popes (Liber Pontificalis)|date=2006|publisher=Arx Publishing, LLC|location=Merchantville, New Jersey, USA|page=37|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1KMTRsvPGUC|access-date=10 March 2015|quote=He established a cemetery on the Via Salaria, and he appointed 25 "title" churches as jurisdictions within the city of Rome to provide baptism and penance for the many who were converted among the pagans and burial for the martyrs.|isbn=9781889758862}}</ref>  At the beginning of the 7th century, there were probably twenty-five "title" churches in Rome; even granting that, perhaps, the compiler of the ''Liber Pontificalis'' referred this number to the time of Marcellus, there is still a clear historical tradition in support of his declaration that the ecclesiastical administration in Rome was reorganized by this pope after the great persecution.<ref name="Catholic"/>

The work of the pope was, however, quickly interrupted by the controversies to which the question of the readmittance of the [[Lapsi (Christianity)|lapsi]] into the church gave rise.  The poetic tribute composed by [[Pope Damasus I]] in memory of his predecessor and placed over his grave (De Rossi, "Inscr. christ. urbis Romæ", II, 62, 103, 138; cf. Idem, "Roma sotterranea", II, 204–5) relates that Marcellus was looked upon as a wicked enemy by all the lapsed, because he insisted that they should perform the prescribed penance for their guilt. As a result, violent conflicts broke out; Maxentius, who had apostatized before the beginning of the persecution, had the pope seized and sent into exile. This took place at the end of 308 or the beginning of 309 according to the passages cited above from the ''Catalogus Liberianus'', which gives the length of the pontificate as no more than one year, six (or seven) months, and twenty days. Marcellus died shortly after leaving Rome, and was venerated as a saint.<ref name="Catholic"/>