According to legend, St. Sylvester I (who reigned as pope from 314 to 335) converted and baptized Constantine the Great, who was the first Roman emperor to become a Christian, and miraculously cured him of leprosy. In return the emperor allegedly gave him the Donatio Constantini (Donation of Constantine), a document that granted the pope and all his successors spiritual supremacy over the Eastern patriarchates and over all matters of faith and worship as well as temporal dominion over Rome and the entire Western world. The Donation is now universally admitted to be an 8th-century forgery.
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