The life of St Peter of Alexandria
When the persecution of the emperor Diocletian broke out a few years later, Peter set down rules for readmitting to the Church, after a period of penance, those Christians who had denied the faith under threat of death. Some in Alexandria thought this too lenient, chief among them Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, who during one of Peter's periods in hiding usurped his authority and consecrated bishops of his own in defiance of him. A priest of Alexandria named Arius sided with Meletius in this schism; the same Arius would later become notorious for denying the divinity of Christ. When Peter returned he broke communion with Meletius, and before his death he excommunicated Arius as well.
In 311, during a brief lull in the persecution, Peter came back to Alexandria, was arrested, and sentenced to death. To spare his people the danger of a riot at the prison gates, he asked to be led out quietly by a back way, and was beheaded that night at the same spot where the evangelist Mark had been martyred long before. Because his death came at the very end of the Diocletianic persecution, the Church has long called him the seal of the martyrs of Alexandria.
