STEPHEN V (VI), Pope. - Of a Roman family, cardinal priest of the title of the SS. Quattro Coronati. His election, which took place in Sept. 885, displeased the emperor Charles the Fat, who sent an emissary to Rome to have it annulled by an assembly of bishops. But S. succeeded in thwarting the sovereign's murky designs and had no difficulty in having his election recognized.
The dissolution of the Carolingian Empire created no small difficulties for the Pope. Guy, duke of Spoleto, had established the Lombards' way of proceeding; S., having vainly implored the help of Arnulf of Germany against him, resigned himself to consecrating as emperor (21 Feb. 891) the very man 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. Nicholas I had made Bremen a metropolis to the detriment of the archbishop of Cologne; now the latter claimed to re-enter into possession of his rights. The Pope then charged Folco, archbishop of Reims, to assemble a council at Worms to study the case and furnish him with the elements necessary for a decision. In France, Frothar, bishop of Bordeaux, transferred non-canonically to Bourges, had to return to his former diocese. Aurelian, archbishop of Lyon, vainly opposed the election of the deacon Tibald to the see of Langres; the Pope himself consecrated the elect and charged the archbishop of Reims to ease his way to the possession of his bishopric. Between the Ignatian party and the patriarch of Constantinople, enthroned by the basileus after the second deposition of Photius (886), S. maintained a prudent reserve.
He fell victim to the intrigues of bishop Wiching, pro-German, against the Moravian liturgy inaugurated by St. Methodius with the consent of John VIII. Knowing only the falsified passage, introduced by a scribe of the papal Chancery into the registers of his predecessor, he forbade the use of that liturgy; for this reason the prince Svatopluk banished the admirers of St. Methodius, who passed into Bulgaria.
S. died on 14 Sept. 891.
Bibliography7 works
Guglielmo Mollat