000			02425cam a2200253 4500
001			19360
003			OCoLC
005			20250728153239.0
008			250728s1969 nyua b 001 0ceng
013			_d1986
020			_c0192139649
041			_aeng
100			_a J. N. D. Kelly
245	1	4	_aThe Oxford Dictionary of Popes
260			_aUSA _bOxford University Press _c1987
300			_a347 _c22
500			_aThis biographical dictionary is an unrivalled source of information about the astonishing succession of churchmen who have loomed large on the world scene for almost 2,000 years. The Dictionary contains concise accounts not only of all the officially recognized popes from St. Peter to John Paul II, but also of all their irregularly elected rivals, the so-called antipopes; it also has an appendix recording the once generally credited but long discarded, tradition that at some date in the ninth, tenth, or eleventh century there was a femal pope called Joan. Each pope and antipope is assigned an entry which covers, except where (as in the early centuries) no information is available, his family and social background and pre-papal career as well as his activities in office, and each entry has its separate select bibliography, usually including references to the primary source for the pope's life and his official acts. The popes have been deliberately arranged in chronological rather than alphabetical order so that each can be studied in his own historical context. The arrangement also means that the book is in effect a continuous history of the papacy. Based on careful research, but eminently readable, it provides revealing vignettes of the extraordinary variety of men who have claimed to be successors of St. Peter, and their varying involvement on great power politics, personal or family aggrandizement, theological controversy, or spiritual leadership. It also presents a graphic and moving picture of the fluctuating fortunes of the Christian church centered in Rome, sometimes submerged by secular forces, but at other times, under popes of determination and vision, staging a spectacular revival and confronting the world (as today) with a daunting challenge.
630			_lEnglish _9524
650		0	_aPopes
650		0	_aHistory
650		0	_aPapacy
653			_aHagiography سير وقصص الشخصيات المسيحية
942			_cBK _h235 _iH844 _2CPL-CLASS
999			_c71039 _d71038