Pope Stephen III

Common card · No. 457817

Pope Stephen III (Latin: Stephanus III; 720 – 24 January 772) was the bishop of Rome and leader of the Papal States from 7 August 768 to his death on 24 January 772. Stephen was a Benedictine monk who worked in the Lateran Palace during the reign of Pope Zachary. In the midst of a tumultuous contest by rival factions to name a successor to Pope Paul I, Stephen was elected with the support of the Roman officials. He summoned the Lateran Council of 769, which sought to limit the influence of the nobles in papal elections. The council also opposed iconoclasm.

Read on Wikipedia · Image GO69, CC BY-SA 4.0