From the earliest years of Christianity, as chroniclers testify, many young women dressed in the robes of monks. As out of pious zeal, in order to pray fervently - in the nearest male monastery, and not only. And even the companion of the Apostle Paul in his wanderings was a young woman.
The chronicler Nicephorus Callistus, for example, preserved an amazing fact for history: the girl fell in love with the nun Francesco, a young and beardless one, and, being rejected, out of revenge she gave herself to the unloved, and the nun accused her of pregnancy, and Francesco had to reveal that he was Maria.
The daughter of the Alexandrian city governor, having disguised herself, performed monastic affairs more diligently - no matter what she did (weaved the ropes with which they girded or milked the cows, since then the law for monks had not yet passed - categorically forbidding milking as "an exercise from the evil one"). And so she was even chosen as hegumen. And only when the abbot was accused of violence did he have to open up.
At the populous council of 1414, called the Ecumenical Council, since it was attended by almost all the kings and electors in addition to the clergy, Jan Hus stated: “For two years and several months, a woman was in power.”
And not a single person objected - of the forty-nine bishops and twenty-five cardinals, the kings were also silent. But all the secretaries entered this statement into the minutes of the council.
Petrarch devoted all his last years to The Life of Popes. And it says about the famous beauty of John that she "was for a long time mysterious."
The popes in the 9th century were not elected by cardinals (locked up later without food and casting votes for themselves - until hunger led to an agreement), they fought openly for the throne and even erected, sometimes, two popes, fist fights began, the defeated were thrown into the Tiber.
Boccaccio in his book "Famous Women" writes: "When the future pope became the secretary of Pope Leo IV, her beauty was hardly mysterious to him, and she was barely over thirty."
Promotional video:
The secretary must have quickly become indispensable, and although many then disputed the tiara, the students from the Greek school and the servant of Leo IV were in favor of "Father John." He, not having a harem, should have been generous for them. And now, the triumph of the adherents of "Father John"! She chooses for herself garments, so decorated with stones - to give them away right from the clothes.
As if in order for the triumph to be complete, the English king Ephelulf arrived in Rome - the first to bow at the ivory throne to the papal shoe. Pride woke up in her, and the illumination continued again. Contemporaries said that the crows on the roof screamed like geese during the siege of Rome by the Gauls.
Perhaps, in "Father John" a woman's call awoke then - when the kings kissed the foot. And Leo IV, shortly before his death, entrusted her to the care of his “nephew,” as the sons of the popes were then called. And it was he who once appeared in her night apartment - at the call of the papal bell. (Just to think that Leo IV, according to custom, was going to turn him into something of a middle kind). The next morning, Pope John pardoned five criminals and freed seventeen heretics from the fire.
There were many women in history, "whose hearts beat under iron shells," and their heads were adorned with a royal crown. However, how much is this in comparison - papacy in the 9th century! And already all the golden papal robes of Leo IV turned into feasts. But one also had to have a titanic spirit. And at first the Pope was helped, probably, by the confidence that the Almighty would bless kindness. And in the beginning, by the way, John built five cathedrals, she ordained fifteen bishops. And in general, in her two years she still had a hand in so many things that only chroniclers can find it. (Of those, however, who recognized her.)
Many later did not recognize the pope, simply erasing her from the pages of history. This is how the Bourbon historians later missed, as a minor detail, the empire of Napoleon. And if this were completely successful, then the existence of Bonaparte would be doubtful today.
Stendhal writes: “The existence of the pope is also proved by an excerpt from the ancient Canterbury monastery. In the list of popes - after 853, chroniclers report the following: the years of Leo IV are counted up to Benedict III. And the years in which a woman became a Pope are not considered."
And now John was forty years old, but the “nephew,” who was a real man, as Petrarch noted, would not have exchanged her for two twenty-year-olds. Meanwhile, the fanatics grieved more and more that it was too much time, as not a single heretic had been burned, and that the Pope did not execute the Saracen robbers either. And then the Almighty "blessed" his womb, and among all the expensive garments, the one that hid the roundness became the most precious.
And historians tell us that when the procession passed the Flavius amphitheater and approached the Church of St. Irene, the Pope suddenly became ill, and the bishop hastened to sprinkle him, commanding him to “go out to the evil spirit,” but a child appeared. At this place, a statue was erected, depicting what happened.
The Apostle Paul taught: "There is one bread, and we, who are many, are one body." But not so long ago, in 585, in France, in the city of Macon, a council was even convened - to decide: can a woman be ranked among the human race? The crowd howled, demanding to throw the pope and papa into the Tiber.
And this is what the chroniclers, Bishop Jokovatia, Cardinal Paldufla testify: “After John, the elected popes were seated in a chair with a large hole in the seat, so that they would provide proof of sex to the touch. And only after research and exclamations "Habet" (has) - were they handed the heavenly keys."
Church of St. Irene
As the historian Mediolana Corius mentions: "This ceremony, which took place in the church of St. Sylvester, was preserved unswervingly until the 16th century, and even Alexander Borzhia himself could not avoid it, although he had a wife, mistresses and many sons."