Having appealed to no avail to the Emperor in Byzantium, Pope Stephen II secretly sent a message by way of a pilgrim to Pepin the Short, King of the Franks.

[2] Pope Stephen II left Rome in mid- October 753 accompanied by some clerics, nobles, the Emperor's envoy, and the Frankish delegation.

In mid-November the Pope crossed the Great St Bernard Pass arriving at the Abbey of Saint-Maurice d'Agaune, where he was met by Pepin's archchaplain Fulrad, Abbot of Saint-Denis.

[2] The condemnation of future Pope Formosus and others was announced to the emperor and a Synod of Ponthion in July 872, early in the pontificate of John VIII.

After Charles the Bald's coronation in 875, the new emperor summoned a great synod at Ponthion, which met in June 876, and at which a papal brief was read, appointing Ansegis, Archbishop of Sens, as Vicar Apostolic of Gaul and Germany.