Today North Africa is predominantly Muslim but in its day it was a Christian nucleus, where Catholic popes left that left their mark on the church to this day.
His papados date back to the time of the Roman Empire, which extended by the current Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria and the western coast of Libya.
“North Africa was the biblical belt of ancient Christianity,” says Professor Christopher Bellitto, historian of the University of Kean, in the United States.
With the choice of Pope Francis’s successor, many Catholics in Africa expect the papacy to return to the continent for the first time in more than 1500 years.
Here we analyze the three previous African potatoes and how they managed to make Christians celebrate Easter and Valentine’s Day.
The three have been recognized as saints by the Church.
It is believed that Pope Victor I was of Berber origin. He ruled the Catholic Church at a time when Christians were persecuted by the Roman authorities for refusing to worship the Roman gods.
It is known especially for ensuring that Christians will celebrate Easter on Sunday.
In the second century, some Christian groups in the Roman province of Asia (in the current Turkey) celebrated Easter the same day that the Jews celebrated Jewish Easter, which could fall on different days of the week.
However, the Christians of the western part of the empire believed that Jesus rose on Sunday, so Easter should always be celebrated that day.
The debate about when the resurrection took place made it an extremely controversial issue.
The “controversy of Easter” symbolized broader conflicts between the East and West, and if Christians had to follow or not Jewish practices.
Víctor I convened the first Roman Synod, a church leaders meeting, to resolve the Impasse.
He did it by excommunicating those bishops who refuse to fulfill their wishes.
“It was a quite overwhelming voice to get everyone to agree,” Professor Bellitto told the BBC.
This was an impressive feat, said the historian, because “he was a bishop of Rome when Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire.”
Another important part of Víctor I’s legacy was to introduce Latin as a common language of the Catholic Church.
Previously, the ancient Greek was the main language of the Catholic liturgy, as well as the official communication of the Church.
Victor and wrote and spoke in Latin, a language widely spoken in North Africa.
It is believed that Pope Milciades was born in Africa.
During his reign, Christianity was gaining more and more acceptance among the successive Roman emperors, finally becoming the official religion of the empire.
Previously, the persecution of Christians had been generalized at different times in the history of the Empire.
However, Professor Bellitto said that Milcíades was not responsible for this change, stating that the Pope was the “receiver of Roman benevolence” instead of a great negotiator.
The Roman Emperor Constantine granted a palace to Milcíades, becoming the first Pope to have an official residence.
Constantine also granted permission to build the Lateran Basilica, currently the oldest public church in Rome.
While modern potatoes live and work in the Vatican, the Lateran church is sometimes known in Catholicism as “the mother of all churches.”
Gelasio I is the only one of the three African potatoes who, according to historians, was not born in Africa.
“There is a reference to his birth in Rome. So we do not know if he lived in North Africa, but it seems clear that it was of North African ancestry,” said Professor Bellitto.
He was the most important of the three leaders of the African Church, according to Professor Bellitto.
Gelasio I is widely recognized as the first Pope to be officially called “Vicar of Christ”, a term that designates the role of the Pope as representative of Christ on earth.
He also developed the doctrine of the two swords, which emphasized the separate but equal powers of the Church and the State.
Gelasio I made the crucial distinction that both powers were granted to the Church by God, who later delegated earthly power to the State, making the Church the ultimate superiority.
Later, in the Middle Ages, the potatoes sometimes tried to veto the choice of an emperor or a king, claiming that God had granted them that power, said Professor Bellitto.
Gelasio I is also remembered for his response to the acacia schism, a division between the Christian and West Churches between the 484 and 519.
During this period, Gelasio I affirmed the supremacy of Rome and the Papacy over the entire Church, both from the East and the West, which, according to experts, was beyond that of any of its predecessors.
Gelasio is also responsible for a popular celebration that is still celebrated every year: the establishment of Valentine’s Day on February 14 in the year 496 to commemorate the Christian martyr School Valentine.
Some stories claim that Valentín was a priest who continued to celebrate weddings in secret when they were prohibited by Emperor Claudio II.
Historians believe that Valentine’s Day has its roots at the Roman Festival of Love and Fertility, Lupercalia, and it was an initiative of Gelasio I to Christianize Pagan traditions.
Professor Bellitto states that there is no way of knowing with precision the physical aspect of the three popes.
“We must remember that the Roman Empire, and in fact the Middle Ages, we do not consider the breed as we consider it today. It had nothing to do with the color of the skin,” he told the BBC.
“In the Roman Empire they did not care about the race, but about ethnicity.”
Professor Philomena Mwaura, an academic at Kenyatta University in Kenya, explained to the BBC that Roman Africa was very multicultural, with local Berber and Punic groups, released slaves and people from Rome.
“The North African community was quite heterogeneous, and it was also a commercial route for many people who participated in commerce in early age,” he says.
Instead of identifying with specific ethnic groups, “most people belonging to areas within the Roman Empire are considered Roman,” added Professor Mwaura.
It is believed that none of the 217 potatoes from Gelasio and provo from Africa.
“The Church in North Africa was weakened by numerous forces, including the fall of the Roman Empire and the Muslim incursion [en el norte de África] In the seventh century, ”said Professor Mwaura.
However, some experts argue that the prevalence of Islam in North Africa does not explain the absence of a Pope throughout the continent for more than 1500 years.
Professor Bellitto said that the process of choice of a new pontiff became an “Italian monopoly” for many years.
However, he pointed out that there is a great probability that there is a Pope of Asia or Africa in the near future, since the Catholics of the southern hemisphere surpass in number to those of the north.
In fact, today Catholicism is expanding more quickly in sub -Saharan Africa than anywhere else.
The last figures show that in 2023 there were 281 million Catholics in Africa. This represents 20% of the world congregation.
Three Africans compete to happen to Pope Francis: Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, from Ghana; and Robert Sarah, from Guinea.
However, Professor Mwaura argued that “although Christianity is very strong in Africa, the power of the Church still resides in the north, where resources have been concentrated.”
“Perhaps, if it remains very strong in the continent and self -infinance, the time will come when there is an African Pope,” he said.
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