Pope Pontian (170-29 September 235) was the Pope from 222 to 235, succeeding Pope Urban I and preceding Pope Anterus.
Biography[]
Pontian was born in 170 to a family of Romans, and in 222 he became Pope during the reign of Emperor Severus Alexander of the Roman Empire. However, in 235 Alexander's successor Maximinus Thrax overturned his predecessor's tolerance of Christianity and sentenced both Pontian and his rival, the antipope Hippolytus of Rome, to hard labor in the mines of Sardinia, really a death sentence. The two died there.