Antipope Ursicinus

Who is Antipope Ursicinus?

Ursicinus, also known as Ursinus, was elected pope in a violently contested election in 366 as a rival to Pope Damasus I. He ruled in Rome for several months in 366–367, was afterwards declared antipope, and died after 381.

Pope Liberius had been banished in 355, as a result of a conflict with the Emperor Constantius II over the treatment of Arianism. Antipope Felix II was imposed as his successor. After the Emperor's death, Liberius was eventually reinstalled and Felix expelled from Rome. The rival parties remained highly polarized in Rome, however.

Liberius died on 24 September 366. In the early Church, new Bishops of Rome were chosen in the manner customarily used in the other dioceses, that is, the clergy, with the people of the diocese, elected or chose the new bishop in the presence of the other bishops in the province. This was a simple method in a small community of Christians that was unified by persecution.

But as the Christian congregation of Rome grew in size, the acclamation of a new bishop was fraught with division. Rival claimants and a certain class hostility between patrician and plebeian candidates unsettled some episcopal elections.