Benedict VI
Benedict · 973 – 974
A pope chosen with imperial support who was strangled in prison by a rival faction after Otto I's death left him unprotected.
Benedict was a Roman who became pope in 973 with the backing of Emperor Otto I. When Otto died that same year, Benedict lost his protector. The Roman aristocratic faction led by Crescentius I seized him and threw him into the Castel Sant'Angelo. Despite an attempt by an imperial envoy to negotiate his release, Benedict was strangled in his cell in 974 on orders of the antipope Boniface VII. His murder was one of the papacy's darkest hours.
Murdered in Office
Benedict VI was pope for barely a year before he was strangled in prison. His death was not about theology or reform. It was about power: who controlled Rome, who chose the pope, and what happened when the emperor was too far away to help. Benedict paid the ultimate price for being on the wrong side of that equation.