This week in Christian history: English pope elected, PCA holds first General Assembly, OVU closes down

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, December 03, 2023

Only English Pope elected – Dec. 4, 1154

Pope Adrian IV (1100-1159), the only English pontiff in Catholic Church history. | Wikimedia Commons

This week marks the anniversary of when Nicholas Breakspear, the only Englishman to serve as head of the Roman Catholic Church, was elected pope and took the name of Adrian IV.

Born at Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire around the year 1100, Breakspear studied and became involved in the Church while living in France, being made a cardinal by Pope Eugenius III.

During his reign, Adrian IV dealt with a revolt in Rome challenging papal authority, as well as broader political issues within Europe, according to History Today.

“There were problems with the Normans in the south and with the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa,” noted the publication.

“Adrian crowned him in 1155, but Frederick left the Pope in no doubt that as Emperor of Rome he intended to control Rome, and when they first met he ostentatiously refused the usual courtesy of holding the Pope’s stirrup.”

Adrian IV’s reign would only last around five years, as he would die in the Italian city of Anagni in 1159.