134th Pope of the Catholic Church. Pontificate 973 -974. He was born in Rome as the son of Hildebrand. He was chosen with great ceremony and installed as pope under the protection of the Emperor Otto I (936–973) on 19 January 973. During his pontificate, Benedict VI confirmed the privileges of some of the monasteries and churches. On the death of the emperor, the people of Rome confined him in the Castel Sant'Angelo. After a period of less than two months, he was strangled by order of Crescentius I, the son of the notorious Theodora, to prevent his release by Sicco, the imperial envoy of Otto's son Otto II.