pope from 1045 to 1046.

He was elected pope on May 5, 1045, after he paid Pope Benedict IX to resign in order to save the papacy from scandal arising from Benedict's licentious behaviour. But Gregory was accused of simony at the Council of Sutri, Papal States, held by the Holy Roman emperor Henry III in 1046, and deposed on December 20, retiring to Germany with his chaplain Hildebrand, later Pope Gregory VII.