St Cyprian of Carthage

Cyprian was a wealthy and celebrated teacher of rhetoric in Carthage who was converted to Christ around 246, sold his estates for the poor, and within two years was chosen bishop of Carthage by popular acclaim. Almost at once the Decian persecution broke over the Church; governing his flock from hiding, he afterward guided the agonizing question of the lapsed — those who had sacrificed under threat — steering between laxity and rigorism with a pastoral wisdom that shaped the Church's discipline of repentance. His treatise 'On the Unity of the Church' gave the classic warning that 'he cannot have God for his Father who does not have the Church for his mother.' He organized heroic relief during a great plague, serving pagan and Christian alike. In the persecution of Valerian he was exiled, then tried and beheaded near Carthage on 14 September 258, sealing his teaching with his blood before his weeping people.

St Cyprian of Carthage is also one of the Church Fathers — read their biography, works, and verse-by-verse commentary.