July 31, 768

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Joel Byers

On July 31, 768 the shortest tenure of any Pope or Pope hopeful actually happened. On July 31, 768 when Constantine II was forced off the papal seat, Philip, a monk at the monastery of St. Vito was quickly installed to keep the seat warm. When the ruling families of Italy found out about Philip’s ascendancy, they quickly said no, we want Stephen. On August 1, 768, Philip was quickly escorted off the chair and sent back to his monastery where he lived happily ever afterwards and Stephen was made Pope. Constantine II and his supporters? Not so much. They were blinded, or blinded and had their tongues ripped out, or blinded, had their tongues ripped out and beaten severely and left to die. Which they all did. Die that is. Moral of this story is “It’s better to be thought a clueless fool than an actual, competent rival.”

[Facebook] [MySpace] [Twitter] More »

About Joel Byers

Born in North Georgia and educated at some very fine public institutions. Real education started after graduating from college and then getting married and raising two boys. Has the ability to see the funny and absurd in most things and will always remark on it, even if it means getting the stink-eye from his victims.
This entry was posted in 8th Century, Historical Facts and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *