When Three Men Claimed To Be Pope

For nearly forty years, the Catholic Church was paralyzed by a bizarre standoff where three different men simultaneously declared themselves the one true Pope.

This chaos erupted in 1378 when political infighting caused competing factions to elect their own leaders in Rome, Avignon, and later Pisa. Each claimant excommunicated the others, leaving Europe’s religious hierarchy in a state of total confusion. Loyalties were often decided by national politics rather than faith, with kings backing different popes to gain leverage. It took decades of intense diplomatic pressure to finally unify the Church under a single leader in 1417.