Little is known of John’s life before he took office as pope, except that he was born in Tuscany and that his father was Constantius. He was elected a week after the death of his predecessor Hormisdas. Thanks to the recent reunification of the Eastern and Western Churches under Hormisdas, relations were very good with [...]
Antonio Ghislieri was born of poor parents near Alessandria on January 17, 1504. His education began with the Dominicans, and he entered the Dominican order at age 15, taking the name Michael, and became a priest in 1528. Pope Pius V was a professor of philosophy and theology for years, and served his order and [...]
St. Cletus (sometimes Anacletus), the third Pope, governed the Roman Church from about 76 to about 88 during the reigns of the Emperor Vespasian and of Domitian. St. Cletus has given earlier historians some trouble because of his name. Two of the early lists of the popes, the so-called “Liberian Catalogue” and the “Poem Against [...]
We have little definite information about Pope St. Caius. Iit was said that he was a relative of the Emperor Diocletian and was also an uncle of an unidentified holy Susanna. He also made up the final structure of the lower orders. The information is not verifiable, but seems to preclude his martyrdom, because – [...]
Pope Saint Soter (died 174) was the Bishop of Rome, succeeding Pope St. Anicetus, during the latter half of the 2nd Century with his pontificate, according to the Annuario Pontificio, beginning between 162 and 168 then ending between 170 and 177. Although his name is derived from the Greek word “σωτήρ” (sōtēr), meaning a “saviour” or [...]
Pope St. Leo IX was the first pope who worked for reform in the Church. He was born in 1002 and given the name Bruno at Baptism. He was educated at a school for the children of Germany’s royal families and taught by the bishop of his diocese. As a priest, Fr. Bruno served at [...]
Pope St. Anicetus, the 11th pope, succeeded St. Pius towards the year c. 153, and reigned till about 168. While Anicetus was Pope, St. Polycarp, then in extreme old age, came to confer with him (160-162) about the Paschal controversy; Polycarp and others in the East celebrating the feast on the fourteenth of the month of [...]
When Martin I became pope in 649, Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine empire and the patriarch of Constantinople was the most influential Church leader in the eastern Christian world. The struggles that existed within the Church at that time were magnified by the close cooperation of emperor and patriarch. A teaching, Monothelism, strongly [...]
The reign of Pope St. Julius (337-352) found at its doorstep the vexing problem of the Eastern Arians. It is true that the Council of Nicaea had condemned Arianism, but in spite of that Arians had been growing in strength and had even gained the ear of Constantine, and what was more crucial, that of [...]
St. Simplicius, a native of Tivoli, was elected to succeed St. Hilary. His election was peaceful, his pontificate stormy. The empire in the West was dying. After the murder of Valentinian III back in 455, a succession of nine shadow emperors held the throne. Most of these were tools of barbarian generals, and finally in [...]
