Insanity

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Pope Formosus, the 111th occupant of the Chair of St. Peter's.


Pope Formosus at his trial.  Painting by Jean-Paul Laurens.


Stephen VI, Scumbag.

Elected Pope on 6 October 891, Fomosus, given name not found, died in 896.  Pope Stephen VI, tool of the Spoleto faction, birth name not known, had the body displayed at a conclave, when Formosus had been dead for 9 months, where he hurled abuse at it.  He was angry, you conceive.  The corpse was dressed in his robes and seated on the papal throne.  He had a defense spokesman who did not say much in his client's defense to put it mildly.  The assemblage voted him guilty, had the 3 fingers used for the benediction cut off, and the body thrown in the Tiber.  It was recovered and was interred in sacred ground, I cannot find out where, but his body eventually wound up in the Vatican.  In August Stephen was strangled in his prison by order of his successor, Romanus, who died in November of 897.


According to this tablet in St. Peter's, Formosus is buried there.  His name has no date next to it and he is listed under Stephen VI.  This entire episode is known as the Synodus Horrenda, the Cadaver Synod.  This period is known as the Pornocracy.
 


Basilica of St. John Lateran.  The "trial" was held somewhere in here.  The medieval church is long gone.

History can be true even if it's interesting.

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