Pope John IX

Pope John IX
Papacy began	January 898
Papacy ended	January 900
Predecessor	Theodore II
Successor	Benedict IV
Personal details
Birth name	Unknown
Born	Unknown Tivoli, Papal States
Died	January 900 Rome, Papal States

Pope John IX (Latin: Ioannes IX; died January 900) was Pope from January 898 to his death in 900.

Little is known about John IX before he became Pope. Born in Tivoli in an unknown year, he was ordained as a Benedictine priest by Pope Formosus. With the support of the powerful House of Spoleto he was elected Pontiff in early 898 following the sudden death of Pope Theodore II.

With a view to diminish the violence of faction in Rome, John held several synods in Rome and elsewhere in 898. They not only confirmed the judgment of Pope Theodore II in granting Christian burial to Pope Formosus, but also at a council held at Ravenna decreed that the records of the synod held by Pope Stephen VI which had condemned him should be burned. Re-ordinations were forbidden, and those of the clergy who had been degraded by Stephen were restored to the ranks from which he had deposed them.

To keep their independence, which was threatened by the Germans, the Slavs of Moravia appealed to John to let them have a hierarchy of their own. Ignoring the complaints of the German hierarchy, John sanctioned the consecration of a metropolitan and three bishops for the Church of the Moravians.

Finding that it was advisable to cement the ties between the empire and the papacy, John IX gave unhesitating support to Lambert in preference to Arnulf during the Synod of Rome, and also induced the council to determine that henceforth the consecration of the Popes should take place only in the presence of the imperial legates. The sudden death of Lambert shattered the hopes which this alliance seemed to promise.

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