Cardinal Albino Luciani took the names of his two immediate predecessors--John XXIII and Paul VI — to become John Paul I and the 264th successor of St. Peter on August 26, 1978.

He explained that he chose these names to honor the popes who made him a bishop and a cardinal. Pope John Paul I became the first pope to have two names.

But this was not the only "first" of John Paul I's brief papacy. He was also the first to not use the papal tiara and he often spoke using an Italian dialect. Both made the papacy more human and more relatable to people.

“Dialect is a familiar language, and the liturgy proposed by the Second Vatican Council, which gave local languages a central role, required an absolute change,” Stefania Falasca, Vice President of the John Paul I Vatican Foundation, said. “In this way, the message of Christian truth could reach everyone. And he, with his humility, embodied this.”

As the bishop of Vittorio Veneto, Albino Luciani attended all the sessions of the Second Vatican Council.

“We have a journal with notes from the Second Vatican Council and a notebook with his personal reflections on what it means to be a bishop,” Flavia Tudini
an Archivist at the Vatican Apostolic Archives.

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