While we all like to think we're nice, good people - sometimes, not everybody sees
it like that. Sometimes you just rub people up the wrong way and
unfortunately, sometimes those people are important people. Sometimes they're the
Pope -- okay, they're not often the Pope but sometimes - look - sometimes it's the Pope,
okay, and sometimes you're the Pope, and sometimes you're dead and-- the Catholic
Church is weird, okay? This is the true story of a bishop, who -
through no real fault of his own - pissed some people off. Now, usually when you
cause a stir among people it's forgotten pretty quickly- a month later and nobody
remembers and you're all good again. But people were still arguing with this guy
after he died! He wasn't even safe in death! Seriously, they dug up his grave
and dressed him up. So how do you have a debate with a cadaver? Well, like I said
it's-- the Catholic Church is involved, it's complicated. Our tale brings us back
to ninth-century Italy; a time of great political instability. Our hero, Formosus,
became the Bishop of Porto in 864 AD, during the pontificate of Pope Nicholas
the First. He did missionary work in Bulgaria and the people there loved him -
they liked him so much they requested him as their bishop. Pope Nicholas
forbade this because an appointment in Bulgaria would mean Formosus would have
to leave Porto, and you weren't allowed to leave your see to administer another. Enter
Pope John the 8th -- there's been a lot of Pope John's,
I think there's been over 20. There's so many that the numbering of Pope John's
is somewhat confused - it doesn't follow a strict numerical order, there's a
Wikipedia page just for Pope John numbering -- at least one of them didn't
exist? I don't know, it's complicated-- look, from now on if I can't explain
something I'll just say "Catholic Church", okay? Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked... Yeah,
this Pope John didn't like Formosus for whatever reason, so much so that Formosus
actually fled Rome in fear of him. A few months later Pope John held a synod, in
which he accused Formosus of corrupting the minds of the Bulgarians so that they
wouldn't accept any other bishop but him, that he and his followers were trying to
usurp the papacy from John and that he had deserted his
see in Porto-- and yeah, I suppose the last one is fair enough. Formosus and his associates
were excommunicated. Formosus's troubles ended when Pope John died in 882 AD--
Jesus, he was waiting a long time. He quickly resumed his "bisphoric?" "Bishphoric?"--
he went back to being a bishop in Porto. However, in light of John's accusations
against Formosus, some saw his sudden return as ambitious. In 891 AD, our boy,
Formosus, was elected Pope -- nice one! He crowned
Lambert of Spoleto co-ruler of
the Holy Roman Empire. Lambert's dad, Guy the Third had earlier been crowned by
Pope John. A year later, Formosus was panicked by the family's aggression and
the expelling of the Byzantines from Benevento. While the family was out of
Rome, he invited Arnulf of Carinthia to invade Italy and receive the imperial
crown. Arnulf's invasion failed and Guy the Third died shortly after. In 895,
Formosus renewed his invitation. This time, Arnulf was successful and he was
given the crown as Holy Roman Emperor. Their army leaves shortly after and
Arnold dies, followed by Formosus in 896. Formosus was then succeeded by Pope
Boniface the 6th and he died two weeks later.
That's a convoluted string of events -- thank you, Catholic Church. So Lambert of
Spoleto comes back to Rome and he's like, "what the fuck!? What happened!?". He gets
together with the new Pope, Stephen the 6th to convene the "Cadaver Synod". This
was to both reassert Lambert as the true ruler of the Empire and to punish
naughty Formosus. But Formosus was dead! Well, they dug him up and brought him
before court for judgment - this was about a year after his death so-- ew. The corpse
was propped up on a throne and a deacon was appointed to answer for Formosus,
like they actually asked him questions and stuff which-- eh...
alright... He was accused of transmigrating sees in violation of canon law, perjury
and serving as a bishop while actually a layman; remember, he was excommunicated.
The corpse was eventually found guilty - shocker - and was stripped of its papal
vestments. Stephen then cut off the fingers Formosus had used in life for
blessings and formally invalidated all his acts and ordinations which
ironically included the ordination of Stephen as a bishop. Formosus was buried
in a graveyard for foreigners, but was eventually dug up again -- Jesus, leave the poor
man alone. His body was tied to weights and thrown
into the Tiber River. In typical Catholic Church fashion, the tale gets more
complicated. The Cadaver Synod turned public opinion
against Stephen and rumours circulated that Formosus's body had washed up
and started performing miracles -- wahey, I doubt it. A public uprising led to
Stephen being deposed and thrown in prison, where he would later be strangled.
In December 897 - Christ, this is a long story -
Pope Theodore the 2nd convened another synod that annulled the Cadaver Synod and
rehabilitated Formosus, something, something, Catholic Church... A few years
later, John the 9th - another Pope John - ordered the acta of the Cadaver Synod
destroyed. However, a few years, later Pope Sergius the 2nd overturned these rulings and--
oh, fuck this!