Saturday, February 02, 2008

Papal name trivia

So I'm not even Catholic, I know, but I find papal names excruciatingly interesting. I am also the kind of person who generally likes to have things in order, and papal names are no exception.

Therefore I find it troubling that we have a number of papal names that have only been used once! So it hasn't happened in a long time, but still, isn't there some Vatican conference in charge of this? Anyway, the lone papal names I have found are as follows (and please feel free to add names if I miss any):

Lando (913-914)
Romanus (897)
Formosus (891-96)
Valentine (827)
Zachary (741-52)
Constantine (708-15)
Sisinnius (708)
Conon (686-87)
Agatho (678-81)
Donus (676-78)
Severinus (640)
Sabinian (604-606)
Vigilius (537-55)
Silverius (536-37)
Hormisdas (514-23)
Symmachus (498-514)
Simplicius (468-83)
Hilarius (461-68)
Zosimus (417-18)
Siricius (384-99)
Liberius (352-66)
Marcus (336)
Miltiades (311-14)
Eusebius (309 or 310)
Marcellinus (296-304)
Caius (283-296)
Eutychian (275-283)
Dionysius (260-268)
Cornelius (251-53)
Fabian (236-50)
Anterus (235-36)
Pontain (230-35)
Zephyrinus (199-217)
Eleutherius (175-189)
Soter (166-175)
Anicetus (155-166)
Hyginus (136-140)
Telesphorus (125-136)
Evaristus (97-105)
Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
Linus (67-76)

Now this list goes way back, and when you get into the early centuries, especially the 1st and 2nd, it is not entirely clear what the bishop (overseer) of the churches in and around the city of Rome did, because, obviously, there was a good deal of persecution against Christians back then. But this list does go all the way back to Linus, the successor of Peter in terms of oversight off that city's churches.

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