Theodore II

Pope Theodore II (; 840 – December 897) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States for twenty days in December 897. His short reign occurred during a period of partisan strife in the Catholic Church, which was entangled with a period of violence and disorder in central Italy. His main act as pope was to annul the recent Cadaver Synod, therefore reinstating the acts and ordinations of Pope Formosus, which had themselves been annulled by Pope Stephen VI. He also had the body of Formosus recovered from the river Tiber and reburied with honour. He died in office in late December 897.

Background

Little is known of Theodore's background; he is recorded as being born a Roman, and the son of Photios. His brother Theodosius (or Theosius) was also a bishop. Theodore was ordained as a priest by Pope Stephen V. The dead pope was found guilty, his body thrown in the Tiber, and all his acts and ordinations were annulled. Supporters of Formosus rebelled and deposed Stephen VI. His successor, Romanus, is generally assumed to have been pro-Formosus, but he too was soon deposed.

Papacy Theodore II was elected to succeed the deposed Romanus as pope. The exact dates of Theodore II's pontificate are unknown, but modern sources generally agree that he was pope for twenty days during December 897. while in his history of the popes, Alexis-François Artaud de Montor listed Theodore's reign as being twenty days, from 12 February to 3 March 898.

Like Romanus, Theodore was a supporter of Formosus. Some historians believe that Romanus had been deposed because he had not acted to restore Formosus' honour quickly enough, though others suggest that he was removed by supporters of Stephen VI. In either case, Theodore immediately threw himself into the task of undoing the Cadaver Synod. He called his own synod, which annulled the rulings set out by Stephen VI. In so doing, he restored the acts and ordinations of Formosus, including the restoration of a large number of clergy and bishops to their offices. and had a coin minted, bearing the name of Lambert on the obverse, and "Scs. Petrus" and "Thedr." on the reverse. suggest the possibility of foul play. Horace Kinder Mann offers a different suggestion in his papal history, noting that it is possible that popes who were "infirm or even older than [...] their predecessors" might have been elected intentionally. In turn, Sergius III later annulled the synods of Theodore II and John IX, and reinstated the validity of the Cadaver Synod.