Pope Telesphorus

Telesphorus was bishop of Rome from roughly 126 until his death around 137. He held the position during the reigns of Roman Emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, a period when the church operated in the shadow of imperial power. Tradition counts him as the eighth successor to Peter. The circumstances of his death around 137 are unrecorded in the source, but his decade at the helm placed him in the early line of bishops who shaped the church's survival in its first uncertain century.