In the winter of 897, the city of Rome gathered in silence to witness the unthinkable. Inside the Basilica of St. John Lateran, a corpse sat propped on a throne — the body of Pope Formosus, dead for nine months, dressed again in papal robes. And before him, another pope pronounced judgment.

This was the Cadaver Synod — one of the strangest and darkest moments in Church history. A trial of the dead. A symbol of power gone mad. But also, a mirror of the Cross: when heaven’s instruments are twisted by human hands, and yet grace still refuses to depart.

In this episode of Strange Church History, we enter the madness of medieval Rome, trace the politics that led to the Synodus Horrenda, and uncover the meaning hidden within the grotesque — the truth that even in corruption, resurrection waits.