Top 10 Popes who were Assassinated

In every family there is a head member, that head member is the one who takes all the important decisions, every one respects and loves him and he also in return looks after all the other member. Although he is the head but the relation between him and other members is of love, care and respect. There in so place of hatred or greed there. We have so many religions today and every religion is like a family, they have their own ways of living, their own rules & regulations, just the way a normal family has. There is a head of every religion, a mentor who takes the responsibility of the religion. In Christianity that head is referred as the pope.

Pope is a Greek word whose literal meaning is of “father”, the word pope has been derived from the word “papa”. The pope is that one person who is authoritative for the armor of human rights, inter religious dialogue, ecumenism and all the charitable work. He is the one who responsibility it becomes to preach and protect the religion. The first pope which we have was saint peter who was appointed by Jesus himself as the leader of the Catholic Church, today a pope is the bishop of Rome, head of theVatican City and the global leader of the Catholic Church, the office of pope is known as the papacy. We have had plenty of popes since the counting started with saint peter; these popes have had a very prominent importance in the history of world.

The present pope which we have today is Pope Benedict XVI. The papacy has seen many popes, some of them have been bad while some have been good and some of have been great. For many centuries all the popes elected have been Italian by birth, the pope of catholic church is a very honorable title and everyone wants to become the pope therefore the fight for the papacy has been very brutal, many popes have been killed, have been assassinated. The top ten popes who were assassinated are:

10. Pope Saint sixtus 2:

After the saint Stephen was killed, saint sixtus took the charge of the charge. During that time the emperor made it compulsory for all the Christians to attend the ceremony which was held in the honor of the roman god, sixtus however succeed in skipping the event. When the emperor found out about this, he generated the orders for the beheading of the priest; sixtus was beheaded by the emperor’s man during his sermon in 258 A.D.

 9. Pope John 7:

The church has seen many popes both good and bad, but pope john 7 was something else, he was out of his character, although he came from a very respectable family and entered a very respectable professional yet his acts were not worth respect. He was beaten to death by the husband of the woman he was sleeping with in 707 AD.

8. Pope John 8:

John pope was among the most esteemed and greatest popes but his death was not a pleasant event. A lot of political diplomacies were going on during his time and then one day a relative of his came to visit him and simply poisoned him, after a while when he was that he poison was not that much effective, he smashed john’s head with a hammer. Many people say that his event took place as the result of the over whelming jealousy, pope john died in 882 AD.

7. Pope Sergius 4:

Pope Sergius was in charge of the Catholic Church from 1009 to 1012 A.D, he did not come from a much respected family but he was very brilliant and soon rose in ranks as he entered the church. He died in 1012 but his death was natural, most of the people believe that he was murdered and became a victim of the bloody race of the papacy.

6. Pope Damasus 2:

Pope Damasus was nominated by Emperor Henry 3 for the office of papacy and was elected as the pope in 1048 however his duration was very brief and ended with in a month and few days. Some people say that he died of malaria but many believe that he was poisoned by a friend.

 5. Pope Celestine 5:

Pope Celestine is among those people who were born to be a pope, at an early age he left home and went to live on the mountain to practice meditation, he became a pope only for a couple of months, he had resign from the post due to some political conflicts. Later, Boniface ordered to kill him, Celestine although wandered in the woods in isolation for some time, he was then captured and was put into imprisonment for ten months, he died then on 1296 AD .

4. Pope Stephen 7:

Pope Stephen was himself put in the trial due to a very eccentric thing he did, he put a corpse for trial and proved him to be guilty of all charges, and he not only proved him guilty but also punished the dead body by violating the body parts. As a result of this act, he was put into trial, imprisoned and then strangled to death in 897 AD.

3. Pope saint Stephen:

Pope Stephen was in charge of the church for 3 years and the people within the church turned against him because of some controversies over rebaptism of lapsed Catholics. The main cause of saint Stephen’s assassination was emperor Valerian, the emperor was another hater of the Christian who generated warrants against the church, saint Stephen being the pope was murdered in 257 A.D on his throne by the emperor’s men, leaving the throne brimmed with Stephen’s blood.

2. Pope Saint Peter:

Pope Saint Peter was the first pope in the history, he hold a very vital importance in the Catholic Church as he was appointed at the church by Jesus himself, his death was similar to Jesus but he himself asked to be crucified. He became a victim of the emperor Nero of Rome who hated Christians more than anything, he triggered a warrant against saint peter, peter however escaped but later he came back and surrendered after receiving a vision from Jesus, he himself asked to the crucified in the same way as Jesus but in the opposite direction, such as his head was downward and the bottom upward. He died in 64 A.D

1. Pope Saint clement:

Pope clement was dismissed from Rome and was compelled to work in the stone quarry. He was of course not the only prisoner but he had many fellow prisoners. While he was working there he noticed that his fellows were actually in desperate need of water, he couldn’t stand it and picked an axe and aimed towards the ground, the water came out of the ground instantly. All the prisoners converted to Christianity after watching this episode, saint Clement was however tied to an anchor and was thrown into the black sea as a punishment in 99 A.D.