The Patriarch of Venice (; ) is the ordinary bishop of the Archdiocese of Venice. The bishop is one of the few patriarchs in the Latin Church of the Catholic Church (currently three other Latin bishops are accorded the title of Patriarch: Lisbon, the East Indies and Jerusalem). Presently, the only advantage of this purely formal title is the bishop's place of honor in papal processions. In the case of Venice, an additional privilege allows the patriarch, even if he is not a cardinal, the use of the colour red in non-liturgical vestments. In that case, the red biretta is topped by a tuft, as is the custom with other bishops who are not cardinals. The diocese of Venice was created in 774 as suffragan of the Patriarchate of Grado. It was only in 1451 that, in consideration of the political influence of the city, its bishops were accorded the title of patriarch by the pope. By a relatively recent tradition, the Patriarch of Venice is created a cardinal at the consistory following his appointment, though nothing requires the pope to do so. The current patriarch Francesco Moraglia remains an archbishop. In the last centuries of the Republic of Venice (to 1797), exceptionally among Catholic bishops, the patriarch was elected by the Venetian Senate, who always chose a member of one of the hereditary patrician families of the city, and usually a layman who was only ordained to take up the patriarchate. The papacy obliged them to pass an examination in theology, though many evaded this. Usually the new patriarch was a Venetian diplomat or administrator, as with Lorenzo Priuli in 1591 or Francesco Vendramin in 1608, though some were career clerics, who had usually been previously in positions in Rome, such as Federico Cornaro in 1631. The patriarchs normally remained in Venice, and in this period none were elected pope. Since the end of the republic, patriarchs have rarely been of Venetian origin, and three of them became pope in the 20th century alone: Pius X (1903), John XXIII (1958) and John Paul I (1978). Ecclesiastical history Early history The Venetian islands at first belonged to the diocese of Altino or of Padua, under jurisdiction of the archbishop of Aquileia, believed to be the successor of St. Mark. During the Lombard invasion (568–572) many bishops of the invaded mainland escaped under protection of the Byzantine fleet in the eastern