Pope John Paul I the election, occurred when the leader of the delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad, collapsed and died after a ceremony on 5 September 1978. The new pope immediately came over and prayed for him. After he became pope he had set six plans down which would dictate his pontificate: After his election, John Paul I quickly made several decisions that would "humanise" the office of pope, admitting publicly he had turned scarlet when Paul VI placed his stole on Luciani's shoulders while the pontiff visited Venice on 16 September 1972. He was the first modern
Byzantine Papacy in 732/33 by confiscating all papal patrimonies in south Italy and Sicily, together constituting most papal income at the time. He further removed the bishoprics of Thessalonica, Corinth, Syracuse, Reggio, Nicopolis, Athens, and Patras from papal jurisdiction, instead subjecting them to the Patriarch of Constantinople. This was in effect an act of triage: it strengthened the imperial grip on the southern empire, but all but guaranteed the eventual destruction of the exarchate of Ravenna, which finally occurred at Lombard hands in 751. In effect, the papacy had been "cast out of the empire". Pope Zachary, in 741, was the last