Pope from
December 897
Pope until
December 897
Died
December 897
Who he was
Theodore was the son of a man named Photius. Neither his birth nor the day of his election is known; he was most likely pope in December 897, for only twenty days. The chronicler Flodoard says the clergy loved him, and that he was a man of peace, temperate, chaste and kind to the poor.
What he is remembered for
In his short reign he undid the work of Stephen VI: a synod restored the clergy Stephen had degraded, burned the resignations forced from them, and declared the ordinations of Formosus valid. He had Formosus's body, recovered from the Tiber, reburied with honour in St Peter's.
Sources
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