St. Paul I

Pope/St. Paul I was born in Rome and raised in the Lateran. Brother to Pope Stephen II/III, he was elected to the papacy in 757; a minority supporting the Archdeacon Theophylact delayed Paul's enthronement for a month. Paul confirmed the Donation of Pepin with Pepin III the Short and diplomatically kept the Lombards from taking the papal states. When Emperor Constantine V promulgated iconoclasm in 761, Paul turned his house into a monastery that sheltered Greek iconodules who had fled the persecution. The synod of Gentilly in 767 pitted Franks against Greeks in the image controversy. The Greeks triumphed. Paul translated the relics of Petronilla, whom the Franks believed to have been the daughter of St. Peter, from the catacombs to a church in Rome. Paul died shortly after the synod.