Finding Rome locked against him and held by Ageltrude, he had to take the city by force on 21 February 896, freeing the pope.

Thus, despite widely held popular belief outside the Orthodox cultures, there is not one bishop at the head of the Orthodox Church ; references to the Patriarch of Constantinople as a leader equivalent or comparable to a pope in the Roman Catholic Church are mistaken.

Peter never bore the title of " pope ", which came into use three centuries later, but Catholics traditionally recognize him as the first pope, while official declarations of the Church only speak of the popes as holding within the college of the Bishops a role analogous to that held by Peter within the college of the Apostles, of which the college of the Bishops, a distinct entity, is the successor.

Far from being a mere " stop gap " pope, to great excitement, John called an ecumenical council fewer than ninety years after the First Vatican Council ( Vatican I's predecessor, the Council of Trent, had been held in the 16th century ).

Pope Benedict XVI held on 19 September 2008 a reception for the conference participants, where he praised Pius XII as a pope who made every effort to save Jews during the war.

Honorius, however, was most concerned about the former papal stronghold at Fumone, which the nobles, who held it in the pope ’ s name, had decided to keep possession of.

At the same time he was appointed treasurer of the church of St. Martin in Tours by King Louis IX of France, an office he held until he was elected pope in 1281.

" The first pope said to have been primarily homosexual, he was said to have held orgies in the Lateran palace.

While in Rome he assisted at a council then being held concerning certain questions on " the life and monastic peace of monks ", and, on his departure, took with him to England the decree of the council together with letters from the pope to Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury, and to all the clergy, to King Ethelbert of Kent, and to all the English people " concerning what was to be observed by the Church of England ".

Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino was first chosen pope as Victor III when Gregory VII died in 1085, but after Victor's short reign, Otho was elected Pope Urban II by acclamation ( March 1088 ) at a small meeting of cardinals and other prelates held in Terracina in March 1088.

At that time, a conclave was already being held to elect a successor to the recently-deceased pope.

But they were discovered and the Pope raced back to Rome where he immediately held a consistory and demanded to know who the new pope was.

Paul IV's 1559 bull, Cum ex apostolatus officio, stipulated that a heretic cannot be elected pope, while Canon 188. 4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law provides that a cleric who publicly defects from the Catholic faith automatically loses any office he had held in the Church.

* August 11 – Pope Alexander VI succeeds Pope Innocent VIII as the 214th pope, after the 1492 papal conclave, the first held in the Sistine Chapel.

Nevertheless, the archbishop of Ravenna held the second place in Italy after the pope, and played an important role in many theological controversies during this period.

By the time this letter was received by Lanfranc in Rome, it had been read by several other people ; and as Berengar was not well thought of there, Lanfranc feared his association with him might prejudice his own interests, and laid the matter before the pope, Leo IX, who excommunicated Berengar at a synod after Easter, 1050, and summoned him to appear personally at another to be held at Vercelli in September.

Following his victories over the Ottoman Empire, he was called by the Turks the " Lion of Lechistan " and held as the saviour of European Christendom by the pope.

However, soon afterwards Decius was forced to leave the area to fight the invading Goths and while he was away the elections for pope were held.

Pope John XXII himself held heterodox views about the Last Judgement and was a very political pope asserting excessive authority over the Emperor whilst continuing to maintain the Avignon exile, itself a scandal to the Papacy since the Pope must be Bishop of Rome and must, by canon law, live in his Diocese.

He asked if the pope ( by this stage Pope Agatho ) would be willing to send delegates to an ecumenical council to be held at Constantinople to finally put an end to this question.

The synod also ordained that any cleric who sought to gain votes for a successor to the papacy during the lifetime of the pope, or who called conferences and held consultations for that purpose, should be deposed.

Despite the outcome of the synod, Laurentius returned to Rome, and for the next four years, according to the " Laurentian Fragment ", he held its churches and ruled as pope with the support of the senator Festus.

In abbeys exempt from the ( arch ) bishop's diocesan jurisdiction, the confirmation and benediction had to be conferred by the pope in person, the house being taxed with the expenses of the new abbot's journey to Rome.

Algardi, on the other hand, was embraced by the new pope and the pope's nephew, Camillo Pamphilj.

This solution was opposed by the new pope, Eugene IV, who was nominal feudal lord of the King of Naples.

The aim of the council was to end the schism ; to this end they deposed Gregory XII and Benedict XIII and elected the new pope Alexander V in 1409.

The council resolved that all three popes should abdicate and a new pope be elected.

Martin V was elected as new pope in 1417.

In 893, a new pope, Formosus, not trusting the newly crowned co-emperors Guy and Lambert, sent an embassy to Omuntesberch, where Arnulf was holding a Diet with Svatopluk, to request Arnulf come and liberate Italy, where he would be crowned in Rome.

In the Catholic Church the Congregation for Bishops oversees the selection of new bishops with the approval of the pope.

Cardinals are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope.

A well-known instance of the " John Cardinal Doe " style is that in the proclamation, in Latin, of the election of a new pope by the cardinal protodeacon: " Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum ; habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum ( first name ) Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem ( last name ), ..." ( Meaning: " I announce to you a great joy ; we have a Pope: The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord, Lord ( first name ) Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church ( last name ), ...")

In the past, during papal coronations, the Proto-Deacon also had the honor of bestowing the pallium on the new pope and crowning him with the papal tiara.

However, the Proto-Deacon still has the privilege of bestowing the pallium on a new pope at his papal inauguration.

In previous times, at the consistory at which the pope named a new cardinal, he would bestow upon him a distinctive wide-brimmed hat called a galero.

Henry had invested the Ravenna bishop, and now he referred to the new pope, Clement III, Antipope Clement III as “ our pope ”.

Upon the death of Gregory, the cardinals elected a new pope, Victor III.

The new pope, Pius III, had Cesare arrested.

His Holiness Abune Paulos died in August 2012 and transitionally a new pope is elected until an election is made next year.

After thirty years of schism, the Council of Pisa had sought to resolve the situation by deposing the two claimant popes and elected a new pope, Alexander V. The council claimed that in such a situation, a council of bishops had greater authority than just one bishop, even if he were the bishop of Rome.

Gregory XII's cardinals were accepted as true cardinals by the Council, but the members of the council delayed electing a new pope for fear that a new pope would restrict further discussion of pressing issues in the Church.

The new pope, Martin V, elected November 1417, soon asserted the absolute authority of the papal office.

The new pope, Adrian VI, sent his nuncio Chieregati to the Diet, to insist both that the edict of Worms be executed, and that action be taken promptly against Luther.