9. Formosus, Stephen VI’s Enemy to the Death, and Beyond
Pope Stephen VI hated a former Holy Father, Pope Formosus, who was born in Rome in 816. Formosus rose within the Catholic Church’s hierarchy to Cardinal Bishop of Porto, Rome’s port city and main harbor, in 864. Two years later, Pope Nicholas I appointed him papal legate and missionary to the pagan Bulgar tribes. He was so successful at it, that the converted Bulgarians clamored to have him appointed as their bishop. However, technicalities in the Catholic Church’s laws forbade that. In years to come, Formosus’s enemies used that success in converting the Bulgars, and his popularity with them, against him.
They asserted that he had corrupted the minds of the Bulgars “so that as long as he was alive, they would not accept any other bishop from the apostolic see“. Formosus was also alleged to have conspired with others to usurp the authority of Pope John VIII, and to have plundered church property. Between those charges and the Bulgar-related allegations, he was excommunicated. He was restored to the Church’s good graces after John VIII’s death in 882, and resumed his bishopric of Porto, which he held until he was elected pope in 891.
