Lentorama 2025: Perfunctory Popes

Day 30: Michael V

If a pope named Michael - never mind five popes Michael - doesn't ring a bell, there's a reason.

The pope in Rome isn't the only church leader to use the title pope.

The Coptic Orthodox Church uses the title (formally Papa Abba) for the Patriarch of Alexandria, whose line traditionally starts with St. Mark. The use of the term does not conflict with the use by the bishop of Rome.

And if the Copts don't challenge Rome for use of the term pope, they also don't challenge Rome in the number of popes who served less than one year. Coptic popes tend to get more time in office, probably because there weren't local kings who kept deposing them. For example, there have been two Coptic popes in the 21st century - the current one, who started in 2012, and his predecessor, who took office in 1971. Terms in office were shorter earlier in history, but still nothing like what was going on in Italy.

Michael V is the most recent Coptic pope to serve less than a year, having served 8 months between 1145 and 1146. There's very little out there about his time in office, with the one notable achievement the return of the relics of St. Macarius the Great to his monastery in the Nitrian Desert. 

More notable for me was the difficulty I had finding Michael on the list of Coptic popes on the Coptic Orthodox Church website. Turns out the popes Michael used differing forms of the name, which the website counts separately (our subject is Michael III there, as two of the Michaels on my original list are entered as Khail I and II).