List of Every Pope in History

Since the time of Christ, there have officially been 266 Popes, starting with the first Pope, Saint Peter. To show the chronology, we have put together a list of Popes in order to show who was in power at which periods during history.

St. Peter was a disciple of Christ who came to Rome to spread the word of God and was crucified under Emperor Nero in 67 A.D. for spreading what was then an illegal religion. He was crucified upside down on the area which is today where St. Peter’s Basilica is built and it is believed that St. Peter’s bones are buried underneath the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Below you will find a list of all the official popes, starting with the first Pope, over nearly 2,000 years of history to our current Pope, Francis. For the almost two millenium during which the world has had Catholic Popes, you will find that the average length for a Pope is 8 years.

A Pope is elected for life, except in very rare cases where a Pope retires. This might not seem rare because this exact thing did happen in 2013 when Pope Benedict XVI retired at the age of 86. However, he was the first Pope to retire in almost 600 years since Gregory XII stepped down in 1415.

The Pope has direct authority of the organisation of the government of the Catholic Church and is the leader of his own country, Vatican City which became it’s own country in 1929. Below is a list of all the Popes – and keep in mind that just over half are buried inside and below St. Peter’s Basilica.