St. Sixtus, who may have been of Greek extraction, was elected pope in August 257. On succeeding Stephen I (254–57), Sixtus became heir to the controversy that had originated during Stephen’s pontificate concerning the validity of baptism conferred by heretics. The Churches of Africa and Asia Minor held to their custom of rebaptizing heretics and schismatics, but Sixtus, like Stephen before him, upheld the Roman view that baptism,
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