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During certain periods of turbulence in the Roman Catholic Church, Papal elections were conducted which were not considered valid by the Roman Catholic Church, either at the time of the election itself, or were subsequently declared invalid. These elections have set up claimants to the Papacy. They were usually in opposition to a specific person chosen as pope by the Roman Catholic Church. A person chosen by such an external election is known as an antipope. The earliest of these, Hippolytus, was elected in protest against Pope Callixtus I by a schismatic group in the city of Rome in the 3rd century. Hippolytus ended his life, however, in exile during Roman imperial persecution in the mines on the island of Sardinia in the company of Callixtus' successor Pope Pontian, and was reconciled to the Catholic Church.
The late 14th and early 15th century saw a series of rival popes elected, one line of which is counted by the Roman Catholic Church as popes and the other as antipopes. The scandal of multiple claimants added to the demands for reform that produced the Protestant Reformation at the turn of the 16th century. See Western Schism, Antipope Benedict XIII.
It would not necessarily have been evident, during periods when two (or three) rival claimants existed, which was the antipope, and which was the pope, and the clear-cut distinctions made between them in retrospect can give a false sense that certainty existed among their contemporaries. Supporters might offer assistance to a given candidate, but could not know which would be determined to have been an antipope, and which the pope, until events had run their course.
There has not been an antipope since 1449, unless sedevacantist antipopes are counted (see below). Other schisms like the Church of England are controlled by lay sovereigns who do not want to have an ecclesiastical rival or begin like the Old Catholic Church and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in a rejection of a primary dogma of the papacy.
Today the act of becoming an Antipope is considered a schismatic act by the Roman Catholic Church. This would result in automatic excommunication for the person who became Antipope.
List of antipopes
- St. Hippolytus (reconciled with Pope St. Pontian and died as martyr to the church), 217–235
- Novatian, 251–258
- Felix II (confused with a martyr with the same name and thus considered an authentic pope until recently), 355–365
- Ursicinus (Ursinus), 366–367
- Eulalius, 418–419
- Laurentius, 498–499, 501–506
- Dioscorus (legitimate perhaps as opposed to Boniface II but died 22 days after election), 530
- Theodore (opposed to antipope Paschal), 687
- Paschal (opposed to antipope Theodore), 687
- Theofylact, 757
- Constantine II, 767–768
- Philip (replaced antipope Constantine II briefly; reigned for a day and then returned to his monastery), 768
- John, 844
- Anastasius III Bibliothecarius, 855
- Christopher, 903–904
- Boniface VII, 974, 984–985
- John Filagatto (John XVI), 997–998
- Gregory VI, 1012
- Sylvester III, 1045
- John Mincius (Benedict X), 1058–1059
- Pietro Cadalus (Honorius II), 1061–1064
- Guibert of Ravenna (Clement III), 1080 & 1084–1100
- Theodoric, 1100–1101
- Adalbert, 1101
- Maginulf (Sylvester IV), 1105–1111
- Maurice Burdanus (Gregory VIII), 1118–1121
- Thebaldus Buccapecuc (Celestine II) (legitimate but submitted to opposing pope, Honorius II and afterwards considered an antipope), 1124
- Pietro Pierleoni (Anacletus II), 1130–1138
- Gregorio Conti (Victor IV), 1138
- Ottavio di Montecelio (Victor IV), 1159–1164
- Guido di Crema (Paschal III), 1164–1168
- Giovanni of Struma (Callixtus III), 1168–1178
- Lanzo of Sezza (Innocent III), 1179–1180
- Pietro Rainalducci (Nicholas V), antipope in Rome, 1328–1330
- Robert of Geneva (Clement VII), antipope of the Avignon line, 20 September 1378 – 16 September 1394
- Pedro de Luna (Benedict XIII), antipope of the Avignon line, 1394–1423
- Pietro Philarghi Alexander V, antipope of the Pisan line, 1409–1410
- Baldasssare Cosa John XXIII, antipope of the Pisan line, 1410–1415
- Gil Sanchez Munoz (Clement VIII), antipope of the Avignon line, 1423–1429
- Bernard Garnier (Benedict XIV), antipope of the Avignon line, 1425–1430?
- Jean Carrier (Benedict XIV ‘II’), antipope of the Avignon line, 1433–?
- Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy (Felix V), 5 November 1439 – 7 April 1449
Sedevacantist antipopes
Some breakaway Catholics today, called sedevacantists, (see Sedevacantism) claim the current Popes are heretics for replacing the Tridentine Latin Mass with what they call the Novus Ordo Missae and allowing the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular. Some of them have their own popes to replace the popes they reject. They are sometimes called antipopes, although it should be noted that in contrast to historical antipopes, the number of their followers is minuscule.
Sedevacantist antipopes frequently refer to the conventional successors of Pope Pius XII as an series of antipapacies, though never in the Church's history has an Antipope opposed a sede vacante.
Among modern Twentieth/Twenty-first century "antipopes" are:
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