On December 31 the Church honors St. Sylvester I, Pope from 314 to 335 — the pontificate that spanned the reign of Constantine and saw the Church emerge from the catacombs into the daylight of the Empire's favor. Sylvester did not attend the Council of Nicaea in 325 (he sent legates), but under his pontificate the great Constantinian basilicas of Rome were built: the Lateran Basilica, consecrated in 324, and the original St. Peter's on the Vatican, begun around 324 and completed after his death. The tradition of Constantine's "Donation" — the apocryphal grant of the Western Empire to the Pope, used for centuries to support papal temporal claims — is associated with his name.
Sylvester died on December 31, 335, and was buried in the Catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Salaris; his relics were later translated to the church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome, which is dedicated to him. He is the last saint of the liturgical year, and his feast — the day before the new calendar year begins — has been read in the Western tradition as a hinge: the pontiff who closed the age of the catacombs and opened the age of the basilica. In Rome the churches of San Silvestro in Capite and San Martino ai Monti are the pilgrimage sites associated with him.
