supported him against the Arians. Damasus supported the appeal of the Christian senators to Emperor Gratian for the removal of the altar of Victory from the Senate House, and lived to welcome the famous edict of Theodosius I, "De fide Catholica" (27 February 380), which proclaimed as the religion of the Roman State that doctrine which Peter had preached to the Romans and of which Damasus was head. Devotion to the martyrs Damasus also did much to encourage the veneration of the Christian martyrs, restoring and creating access to their tombs in the Catacombs of Rome and elsewhere, and setting up tablets with verse inscriptions composed by himself, several of which survive or are recorded in his Epigrammata. Damasus rebuilt or repaired his father's church named for Laurence, known as San Lorenzo fuori le Mura ("St Lawrence outside the walls"), which by the 7th century was a station on the itineraries of the graves of the Roman martyrs. Damasus' regard for the Roman martyr is attested also by the tradition according to which the Pope built a church devoted to Laurence in his own house, San Lorenzo in Damaso. Damasus was pope for eighteen years and two months. His feast day is 11 December. He was buried beside his mother and sister in a "funerary basilica ... somewhere between the Via Appia and Via Ardeatina", the exact location of which is lost. Since 2011, this saint has given its name to the San Damaso Ecclesiastical University, a Catholic center of higher education belonging to the Archbishopric of Madrid, in Spain, where theology, Canon Law, Religious Sciences, Christian and Classical Literature, and Philosophy can be studied. See also List of popes List of Catholic saints Pope Saint Damasus I, patron saint archive References Literature Lippold, A., "Ursinus und Damasus," Historia 14 (1965), pp. 105–128. Sheperd, M. H., "The Liturgical Reform of Damasus," in Kyriakon. Festschrift für Johannes Quasten (ed. Patrick Granfield and J.A. Jungmann) II (Münster 1970) pp. 847–863. Green, M., "The Supporters of the Antipope Ursinus," Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971) pp. 531–538. Taylor, J., "St. Basil the Great and Pope Damasus," Downside Review 91 (1973), pp. 183–203, 261–274. Nautin, P. "Le premier échange épistulaire entre Jérôme et Damase: lettres réelles ou fictives?," Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 30, 1983, pp. 331–334. Cameron, Alan, "The Date and the Owners of the Esquiline Treasure", American Journal of Archaeology, Vol