Pope Benedict II

Infobox Pope
English name=Benedict II


term_start=June 26, 684
term_end=May 8, 685
predecessor=Leo II
successor=John V
birth_date=???
birthplace=Rome, Italy
dead=dead|death_date=death date|685|5|8|mf=y
deathplace=Rome, Italy. Location of tomb has since been lost.
other=Benedict infobox popestyles
papal name=Pope Benedict II
dipstyle=His Holiness
offstyle=Your Holiness
relstyle=Holy Father
deathstyle=Saint|

Pope Saint Benedict II was pope from 684 to 685.

He succeeded Leo II. Although chosen in 683, he was not ordained until 684 because the leave of Emperor Constantine IV was not obtained until some months after the election. According to "Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum", he obtained from the Emperor a decree which either abolished imperial confirmations altogether or made them obtainable from the Exarch of Ravenna. This gave the power of confirmations of papal nominations directly to the Church and the people of Rome. Benedict symbolically adopted Constantine's two sons Justinian and Heraclius.

To help to suppress Monothelitism, he endeavoured to secure the subscriptions of the bishops of Hispania to the decrees of the Third Council of Constantinople, of 678, and to bring about the submission to the decrees of Macarius, the deposed bishop of Antioch.

Restorations of numerous churches in Rome are ascribed to the less than a year's pontificate of Benedict II.

This Pope was an alleged collateral ancestor to the Roman Savelli family, according to a 15th century chronicler, but this is undocumented and very likely unreliable.

External links

* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02427d.htm "Catholic Encyclopedia"]