Saint Stephen III

Pope Stephen III (Latin: Stephanus III; 720 – 24 January 772) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 7 August 768 to his death on 24 January 772. Stephen was a Benedictine monk who worked in the Lateran Palace during the reign of Pope Zachary. In the midst of a tumultuous contest by rival factions to name a successor to Pope Paul I, Stephen was elected with the support of the Roman officials. He summoned the Lateran Council of 769, which sought to limit the influence of the nobles in papal elections. The council also opposed iconoclasm. A Greek born in Sicily, Stephen III was the son of a man named Olivus. Coming to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Gregory III, he was placed in the monastery of St. Chrysogonus, where he became a Benedictine monk. During the pontificate of Pope Zachary, he was ordained a priest, after which the pope decided to keep him to work at the Lateran Palace. Stephen gradually rose to high office in the service of successive popes, and was at the bedside of the dying Pope Paul I as powerful factions began manoeuvring to ensure the election of their own candidate in late June 767. 768 was consumed by the rival claims of antipopes Constantine II (a layman puppet forcibly installed by a faction of Tuscan nobles) and Philip (the candidate of the Lombards), who were forced out of office by the efforts of Christophorus, the primicerius of the notaries, and his son Sergius, the treasurer of the Roman Church. With the capture of Constantine II, Christophorus set about organising a canonical election, and on 1 August he summoned not only the Roman clergy and army, but also the people to assemble before the Church of St. Adrian in the area of the old Comitium. Here, on 7 August, the combined assembly elected Stephen as pope. They then proceeded to the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, where they acclaimed Stephen as pope-elect, and escorted him to the Lateran Palace.