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20 Historic Events Even the Movies Won’t Touch

Khalid Elhassan July 28, 2019 23 min

15. Pope Sergius III Killed Two Predecessors

Sergius III (circa 860 – 911) was Holy Father from 904 to 911, during an exceptionally scandalous period of pontifical history. However, even by the standards of scandalous popes, Sergius III stands out for the dubious distinction of being the only pope to have ever killed another pope. Or to be more accurate, popes: Sergius III rose to the papacy by killing his two immediate predecessors, popes Leo V and his successor, Christopher.

In 898, Sergius got an aristocratic faction in Rome to elect him pope, but another faction elected a rival pope, John IX. John was supported by the Holy Roman Emperor, so his election stuck, and Sergius was forced to flee Rome. There followed a period of turmoil that saw the election of other rival Popes, until 903, when an antipope named Christopher drove the sitting Pope Leo V out of Rome. Sergius returned to Rome at the head of an army, and seized the city and both competing popes. Sergius then ordered Christopher and Leo V strangled, and had himself appointed Pope Sergius III in 904.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.