STEFANO V (VI), POPE. — Of Roman family, cardinal priest of the title of SS. Quattro Coronati. His election, which took place in September 885, displeased the emperor Carlo il Grosso, who sent an envoy to Rome to have it annulled by an assembly of bishops. But S. succeeded in thwarting the sovereign’s dark designs and had no difficulty in securing recognition of his election.
The dissolution of the Carolingian Empire created no small difficulties for the Pope. Guido, duke of Spoleto, had introduced the Lombard manner of proceeding; S., having vainly implored the help of Arnolfo di Germania against him, resigned himself to consecrating as emperor (21 February 891) the man whom he had previously treated as a “bad Christian.”
From the spiritual point of view, S. exercised his authority over the Christian world without encountering too many obstacles. Niccolò I had made Bremen a metropolitan see to the detriment of the archbishop of Cologne; now the latter claimed to regain possession of his rights. The Pope therefore charged Folco, archbishop of Reims, with convening a council at Worms to examine the case and provide him with the elements necessary for a decision. In France, Frotario, bishop of Bordeaux, who had been transferred non-canonically to Bourges, had to return to his former diocese. Aureliano, archbishop of Lyon, vainly opposed the election of the deacon Tibaldo to the see of Langres; the Pope himself consecrated the elected candidate and charged the archbishop of Reims with facilitating his access to possession of his bishopric. Between the Ignatian party and the patriarch of Constantinople, enthroned by the basileus after the second deposition of Fazio (886), S. maintained prudent reserve.
He fell victim to the intrigues of the bishop Vichingo, pro-German and opposed to the Moravian liturgy, inaugurated by s. Metodio with the consent of Giovanni VIII. Knowing only the falsified passage inserted by a scribe of the Papal Chancery into the registers of his predecessor, he prohibited the use of that liturgy; for this reason Prince Svatopluck banished the admirers of s. Metodio, who passed into Bulgaria.
S. died on 14 September 891.