Servus Servorum Dei is a Latin phrase meaning Servant of the Servants of God. This phrase is one of the titles of the Pope and is used to refer to the Pope in the beginning address of Papal bulls. The Pope is the Catholic Bishop and patriarch of Rome, and head of the Catholic Church. ... Papal bull of Pope Urban VIII, 1637, sealed with a leaden bulla. ...

History

Pope St. Gregory I was the first pope to use this title to refer to the office of the Pope. Some of his successors used the phrase off and on for the several hundred years, but it was not regularly used until the 9th century. Other civil rulers at times used this title as well, but after the 12th century it came to be used exclusively by the Pope. Pope Saint Gregory I or Gregory the Great (c. ...

In the years following the Second Vatican Council, Popes have used the concept of Servus Servorum Dei to help in making their office a simpler and less regal office. Pope Paul VI stopped using the Papal Tiara, and none of his successors have ever worn the tiara. John Paul I, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI had dispensed with the Papal Coronation ceremony, instead opting for a simpler Papal Installation ceremony. Instead of receiving the Papal Tiara, the three men received the pallium during their installation ceremonies. Also, the royal we was dispensed with in speech, and instead the singular I has been used by Paul's successors. The Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, was an Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church opened under Pope John XXIII in 1962 and closed under Pope Paul VI in 1965. ... Pope Paul VI (Latin: ), born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini (September 26, 1897 – August 6, 1978), reigned as Pope and as sovereign of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978. ... The Papal Tiara, also known as the Triple Tiara, in Latin as the Triregnum, or in Italian as the Triregno,[1] is the three-tiered jewelled papal crown of Byzantine and Persian origin that is the symbol of the papacy. ... Pope John Paul I (in Latin ), born Albino Luciani (October 17, 1912 – September 28, 1978), reigned as pope and as sovereign of Vatican City from August 26, 1978 to September 28, 1978. ... Pope John Paul II (Latin: ), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005), reigned as pope of the Catholic Church for almost 27 years, from 16 October 1978 until his death, making his the third-longest reign in the history of the Papacy according to the... Pope Benedict XVI (Latin: ; born April 16, 1927 as Joseph Alois Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, Germany) is the 265th reigning pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City. ... Pope Pius XII, in coronation robes and wearing the 1877 Papal Tiara, is carried through St. ... The Papal Installation is a liturgical service of the Roman Catholic Church and its Eastern Rite for the ecclesiastical investiture of the Pope. ... A Pallium The Pallium or Pall (derived, so far as the name is concerned, from the Roman pallium or palla, a woollen cloak) is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Roman Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the Pope, but for many centuries past bestowed by him on metropolitans and primates as...