Pope-elect Stephen

Stephan ( II ) ( † 25 or March 26 752 ) is the pope with the shortest tenure. He was diagnosed as the eldest presbyter of Rome on 22 or 23 March 752 the official successor of Zacharias. At the time of his unanimous election, he was already a very old man, and he died four days later of a stroke, without having received episcopal ordination.

Throughout the Middle Ages were thought to episcopal ordination as an indispensable prerequisite for a pontificate and, therefore, excluded him from the Pope lists. During the debates on the Rights of the Kardinalats in the 15th and 16th centuries changed this view, since you now assumed that the election was sufficient by the College, to legitimize a pope.

From the 16th century stood until 1961 Stephan ( II ) in the pontificate lists. With the Annuario Pontifical of 1961, the former view is confirmed again. The innovations of the papal election by Paul VI. Following this view is ( episcopal ordination as a mandatory requirement ) in the Code of Canon Law of 1983 ( Can. 332). The trouble in this case is the name of the immediate successor: Stephen II For this reason you will find Stephan ( II ) often in lists of anti-popes, where he is, however, misplaced, he was legitimately elected pontiff - only without consecration.

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