Lentorama 2010: Two Millennia of Pointy Hats

Day 2: Pope Anacletus or Cletus (77-88 or 80-92)

The third pope, the most we know about Anacletus is that we don't know if he is also Pope Cletus. The church and most historical sources consider them to be the same person, while some other sources continue to list two separate people. There were two feast days, which were merged into one in the early 1960s. It's all very confusing and required some level of papal intervention to get things as relatively clean as they are now.

As with most of the early popes, not much is known about him, as you might tell from the two different periods attributed to his pontificate. He is traditionally thought to be Roman and responsible for the division of Rome into parishes. He's also believed to have been martyred, though how isn't explained.

There is a religious order in the US called the Anacletians, who (ironically) don't believe that the pope is in charge of the Catholic church. This somehow relates back to the Old Catholic movement and the Syraic Orthodox Church, and leaves them in some sort of semi-legal status with Rome. I cannot even begin to pretend that I understand how it all works.