section_path: Papacy/Election
section_name: Election
paragraph_text: Election
  
  Pope Paul VI died on 6 August 1978, ending a papacy of fifteen years. Luciani was summoned to Rome for the conclave to elect the new pope. Time reported that the Dean of the college, Carlo Confalonieri, who was excluded from participating because of age, had been the first to suggest Luciani.
  
  Luciani was elected on the fourth ballot of the August 1978 papal conclave. Luciani had previously said to his secretary, Father Diego Lorenzi, and Father Prospero Grech (later a cardinal himself), that he would decline the papacy if elected, and that he intended to vote for Aloísio Lorscheider, whom he met in Brazil. Jaime Sin of the Philippines told him: "You will be the new pope."
  
  However, when he was asked by Jean-Marie Villot if he accepted his election, Luciani replied, "May God forgive you for what you have done", but accepted the election. After his election, when Sin paid him homage, the new pope said: "You were a prophet, but my reign will be a short one". On the balcony of St Peter's Basilica, Pericle Felici announced that the cardinals had elected Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice, who had chosen the name Pope John Paul I. It was the first time that a pope had chosen a double name. He later explained that the double name was taken to gratefully honour his two immediate predecessors: John XXIII, who had named him a bishop, and Paul VI, who had named him Patriarch of Venice and Cardinal. He was also the first pope to designate himself "the First" with the name. (Pope Francis, elected in 2013, also took a previously unused papal name but chose not to be called "the First".)
  
  In the aftermath of the election, the pope confided to his brother Edoardo that his first thought was to call himself "Pius XIII" in honour of Pope Pius XI, but he gave up on the idea, worried that the traditionalist members of the Church might exploit this choice of regnal name.
  
  Observers have suggested that his selection was a compromise to satisfy rumoured divisions among seemingly rival camps within the College of Cardinals:
  
  During the days following the conclave, the cardinals were generally elated at the reaction to Pope John Paul I, some of them happily saying that they had elected "God's candidate". Argentine Eduardo Francisco Pironio stated, "We were witnesses of a moral miracle." Mother Teresa, commenting about the new pope, "He has been the greatest gift of God, a sun beam of God's love shining in the darkness of the world." British primate Cardinal Basil Hume declared: "Once it had happened, it seemed totally and entirely right... We felt as if our hands were being guided as we wrote his name on the paper".
  
  A dramatic event, soon after the election, occurred when the leader of the delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad, collapsed and died during an audience with the Pope on 5 September 1978. The new pope immediately came over and prayed for him.
  
  Pope Paul VI died on 6 August 1978, ending a papacy of fifteen years. Luciani was summoned to Rome for the conclave to elect the new pope. Time reported that the Dean of the college, Carlo Confalonieri, who was excluded from participating because of age, had been the first to suggest Luciani.
  
  Luciani was elected on the fourth ballot of the August 1978 papal conclave. Luciani had previously said to his secretary, Father Diego Lorenzi, and Father Prospero Grech (later a cardinal himself), that he would decline the papacy if elected, and that he intended to vote for Aloísio Lorscheider, whom he met in Brazil. Jaime Sin of the Philippines told him: "You will be the new pope."
  
  However, when he was asked by Jean-Marie Villot if he accepted his election, Luciani replied, "May God forgive you for what you have done", but accepted the election. After his election, when Sin paid him homage, the new pope said: "You were a prophet, but my reign will be a short one". On the balcony of St Peter's Basilica, Pericle Felici announced that the cardinals had elected Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice, who had chosen the name Pope John Paul I. It was the first time that a pope had chosen a double name. He later explained that the double name was taken to gratefully honour his two immediate predecessors: John XXIII, who had named him a bishop, and Paul VI, who had named him Patriarch of Venice and Cardinal. He was also the first pope to designate himself "the First" with the name. (Pope Francis, elected in 2013, also took a previously unused papal name but chose not to be called "the First".)
  
  In the aftermath of the election, the pope confided to his brother Edoardo that his first thought was to call himself "Pius XIII" in honour of Pope Pius XI, but he gave up on the idea, worried that the traditionalist members of the Church might exploit this choice of regnal name.
  
  Observers have suggested that his selection was a compromise to satisfy rumoured divisions among seemingly rival camps within the College of Cardinals:
  
  During the days following the conclave, the cardinals were generally elated at the reaction to Pope John Paul I, some of them happily saying that they had elected "God's candidate". Argentine Eduardo Francisco Pironio stated, "We were witnesses of a moral miracle." Mother Teresa, commenting about the new pope, "He has been the greatest gift of God, a sun beam of God's love shining in the darkness of the world." British primate Cardinal Basil Hume declared: "Once it had happened, it seemed totally and entirely right... We felt as if our hands were being guided as we wrote his name on the paper".
  
  A dramatic event, soon after the election, occurred when the leader of the delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad, collapsed and died during an audience with the Pope on 5 September 1978. The new pope immediately came over and prayed for him.